Thicker Than Water
by Ossian
Summary: -COMPLETE- Jack and Sark come to a new working relationship after Sydney's "Telling" disappearance
1. Default Chapter

AN: Simply because I've seen this theory kicked around the boards but never seen any fanfic that actually tried to make it work. Not that I believe this is in any way remotely plausible... But I couldn't resist the challenge. *g*  
  
Thicker Than Water  
  
CIA agent Jack Bristow stood unobserved in the shadows of the corridor. The object of his scrutiny, scarcely appearing older than a boy on better days, seemed even younger than usual in his current position. The young man was seated on the floor, back against the wall in the only sliver of the cell that he'd judged correctly was out of the range of the camera mounted in the corner. He sat with his arms wrapped around his shins, forehead resting on his knees, utterly still. Jack would almost have guessed that he was asleep, except he doubted that the boy's tension could have been maintained had he dozed off. The toes of bare feet were still curled tightly against the cold floor and the tendons stood out sharply on the backs of clenched hands.  
  
Jack suspected that by morning the cool façade would be back in place, but for now in the assumed privacy of the dim half-light and blind camera, the lone occupant of the glass cell allowed himself to succumb to the pain and confusion of having his well-ordered world shaken to its core. There had been no theatrics, no violent outbursts, nothing but the sudden panicked comprehension that had flared briefly in his eyes and been almost immediately quelled. Even now, only the taut muscles and unnatural stillness belied the turmoil that Jack was certain roiled beneath the surface.  
  
* * * *  
  
- four weeks earlier -  
  
"Agent Bristow! Uh… Jack! Sir!"  
  
Jack sighed mentally but stopped to wait for Marshall to catch up with him. He really didn't have time for one of the gawky genius' convoluted conversations, but he was loath to dismiss the man out of hand as he realized how distraught he seemed.  
  
"What is it?" Jack asked, not unkindly but with only a thin veneer of patience. "Can it wait?"  
  
"Uh, no sir. It already has. I mean I did." Marshall stammered. "I mean I've already put off telling you about this for a week. Well, five days, but technically I suppose that could be considered a workweek although it did cover a weekend. Uh, right… Could we do this in your office?" Apparently anticipating Jack's question he quickly added, "Yeah, it's sort of important."  
  
Reluctantly Jack led Marshall back to his office and motioned him into a chair. He sat down behind his desk and prepared himself for the inevitable hemming and hedging that would precede Marshall's actual concern.  
  
"I know I'm probably keeping you from something important," Marshall began. "But this is kind of important too. Well, I think it's more than kind of important and you ought to know. I've just been trying to figure out how to tell you without, well… And just so you know up-front, I haven't gone to anybody else with this yet. I thought you should be the first... you needed to be the first to know..."  
  
"Sydney?" he asked, leaning across the desk suddenly. "Is it about Sydney? Have you found something?"  
  
"Um, no. Well... yeah, but no. Not exactly." Marshall cleared his throat anxiously under Jack's intense scowl and tried again. "You know the genetic database we got from Stuttgart... Well, that Derevko got from Stuttgart, but we got from Derevko..."  
  
"Marshall."  
  
"Right. As you know, we haven't really figured out what Derevko and Sloane wanted the database for. So I've been fiddling with it in my spare time, you know. Not that I have much spare time, but it was sort of a brain-cleanser between projects. Just pulling up random DNA profiles and running little search patterns on them. Anyway, I got this idea to see if I was in there. I am, by the way, and running a search on it I was able to pull up both my parents' genetic profiles, two aunts, six cousins, three grandparents - which is kind of odd, and a great uncle that nobody talks about because... well, they just don't. So my next idea was to see if anybody else I knew was in there. It turns out that Sydney is in the database, which is why it's sort of about Sydney but not really because that isn't the interesting thing about it." He paused to take a breath.  
  
"The system can sort by all kinds of categories," he continued. "Not just genetic traits, but like I said, it can pull up parents, grandparents, children, siblings. I ran all of those on Sydney... and I uh... I came up with an extra match."  
  
"A what?"  
  
"A uh... an extra match. A person that shouldn't be there. Well, that I wasn't expecting anyway. I ran it three times just to be sure. And then I ran it another eleven times just in case the first four were a glitch. No such luck. Then it occurred to me that maybe Derevko had had time to insert specific information into the database. Although I don't know why she would have bothered unless she'd intended to drop it for Sydney to retrieve, which doesn't really make any sense unless this was what we were supposed to find, but..."  
  
"Marshall!"  
  
"I'm getting there! I'm getting there. Anyway, it also occurred to me that we could verify the results using, as it were, the actual um… subjects involved. So I ran blood samples from both of you through our lab. Very efficient, by the way. Nice guys. And I was careful about not telling them who the samples were. Just A and B. And the results came back the same the first four times they ran it. It's 97.2 percent positive that B is definitely the child of A. Now you're A and B is... Maybe you should just look at it." Marshall handed Jack the folder he'd been clutching. Jack opened it to see a page of four DNA strands. "It's a family," Marshall explained. "Father, mother, daughter, and um..."  
  
Jack stared at the paper blankly.  
  
"I generated this page myself. That would be you - the first one," Marshall pointed toward the long bar of gray and white shadings. "And that next one is…"  
  
"I can read the labels," Jack interrupted. The next one said - Derevko, Irina. The one after - Bristow, Sydney. And the last one...  
  
"That's not possible," he murmured involuntarily.  
  
"I know. That's what I thought too. So I had them run it again. That's sort of one of the reasons that I haven't told you about this until now. I wanted to make absolutely positively sure." Marshall paused. "We ran it thirty-seven times. Primary source material. Always the same results."  
  
"You haven't told anyone else?" he asked without looking up from the folder.  
  
"No, sir."  
  
"Are there any other copies of this information?"  
  
"Everything I have is in that file."  
  
There was a lengthy silence.  
  
"Uh… sir?"  
  
"Yes, Marshall. Thank you," Jack said absently, still focused on the file. "I'll handle this now."  
  
"Okay. You'll... handle? Okay. Um, so I'll be going now?"  
  
Jack nodded, still inattentive, then looked up suddenly. "You're sure about this?"  
  
"Thirty-seven times. I'm positive."  
  
* * * *  
  
Jack sat alone in his office staring at the strands of mapped DNA. Even his untrained eye could see the similarities. The other pages of the file merely confirmed Marshall's assessment. He could barely wrap his mind around the implications.  
  
Laura… Irina had been pregnant when she'd feigned her death all those years ago.  
  
Sydney was not an only child.  
  
He had a son.  
  
He stood abruptly and tucked the folder beneath his arm. Almost without conscious thought, almost against his will, he found himself heading deep into the sublevels of the building. There was only one guard on duty in the observation room and he was accustomed to Jack's occasional visits here. He merely nodded his greeting as Jack focused on the monitor. The range of the camera covered most of the cell, but the inmate was making no attempt to avoid it anyway. He lay on the floor in the middle of the glass-walled cell, chin resting on the back of one hand as he turned the pages of a book with the other.  
  
As Jack tweaked the focus of the camera, the prisoner looked up at the low hum and flashed an impish, fearless grin at the lens. After six months of confinement his dark blond hair had grown longer, tumbling into sharp blue eyes. He needs a haircut, Jack thought dispassionately. He searched for any hint or threat of paternal stirrings at the sight of Sark... and found none.  
  
"Take him out," he told the guard. "Strap him down and drug him up."  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"Just do it. I need a few more answers."  
  
Jack sensed the man's hesitation but eventually he began to move. They hadn't done this in months. Not since it had become abundantly clear that Sark's loyalties were tied to nothing and nobody. The young man's virtually nonexistent morality allowed him to give up former colleagues and allies seemingly without a second thought. He had answered every question put to him without any prevarication that had been detected thus far. He had proven far more useful to the Agency than even Irina had been.  
  
For all his prior cooperation, however, Jack knew that he could not trust the boy to answer these particular questions without constraint.  
  
* * * * 


	2. two

* * * *  
  
Jack was composed as he entered the interrogation room. They had done this many times before and he knew even before he looked at Sark what expression he would be wearing as well. Boredom. Indifference. A trace of patronizing amusement. And beneath it all - curiosity. That was what always intrigued Jack the most whenever they had these sessions. Although he knew that Sark's days consisted of the same dull routine with no end in sight, he was nevertheless surprised at the carefully hidden eagerness with which the boy approached every new interrogation. He was equally surprised by the wry cheerfulness with which he helped the CIA demolish the very operations he'd once worked to build and the odd sense of satisfaction he would almost swear that Sark radiated whenever he knew that he'd been able to provide vital information. He needs to be needed, Jack had concluded. And it didn't matter to him in the slightest who was using him as long as he was being useful.  
  
"You know this isn't necessary," Sark said. His words were slow and carefully measured as he fought the drugs in his system for a few more moments of consciousness. "You know I'll answer anything you ask."  
  
"I know," Jack nodded in agreement and waited for his head to drop. It didn't take long. Soon the attending technician indicated that the boy had entered the most receptive state that they could achieve. The boy, Jack thought as the technician made some final adjustments before leaving them alone. He still occasionally thought of Sydney as a child though he knew that he shouldn't. Sark was half a dozen years her junior and his open, guileless face did nothing to age him. It was little wonder, he mused, that he usually thought of the young man as a boy. He shook his head slightly, marveling at how much havoc this boy had wrought in so few years.  
  
"Can you hear me?" he began at last. Sark nodded, eyes still closed. "Tell me your name."  
  
"Sark."  
  
No matter how many times they'd been through this, they always started here. "Your first name."  
  
"Stephen."  
  
"Where were you born?"  
  
"Oranmore."  
  
"Elaborate."  
  
"Oranmore, County Galway, Republic of Ireland." Beneath the effects of drugs and hypnotism the clipped tones of his formal British education slipped away and faded into the faintest lilt of a softer brogue. Marshall had been pleased to learn that his original estimate had been so accurate.  
  
"What is your mother's name?"  
  
"I don't know," came the immediate reply.  
  
"Your father's name?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Jack was unfazed by this initial blank wall. They had been here before too. "Who named you?"  
  
"I don't know. I was very young at the time."  
  
Jack realized his error and tried a different angle. Sometimes the boy's literal interpretations were as aggravating as a deliberate evasion would have been. "Who raised you?" he asked instead.  
  
"Sister Katherine at St. Michael's until I was nine."  
  
"What happened when you were nine?"  
  
"Irina came." There was a ghost of a smile even beneath the chemical stupor. "She took me to a new school in London."  
  
"What kind of school?"  
  
Although they'd been through this a time or two before as well, this time Jack delved deeper. He already knew that Sark had been subjected to something much like Project Christmas for most of his childhood. Now he probed his relationship to Irina as deeply as he could. The deeper he dug, however, the more certain he became that the boy was entirely unaware of his true bond with her. He idolized her, saw her as a mother-figure, but never realized that she was indeed his mother. Jack wondered briefly if she was pleased at that. He wondered if she ever worried about what his reaction might one day be if he ever discovered the truth. Right now Sark was content to blithely destroy anyone or anything that the CIA requested of him, just as he had done for Sloane and Irina before them. Jack also wondered what he would be like if his considerable intellect and his void of conscience were focused by personal betrayal at a most fundamental level.  
  
* * * *  
  
"What the hell were you thinking?" Kendall stormed at him. "That little stunt of yours didn't tell us anything that we didn't already know or at the very least suspect. What were you looking for?"  
  
"I thought I'd found a new line of inquiry," Jack said calmly. "It didn't pan out."  
  
"What new line of inquiry? You didn't cover any ground that we hadn't gone over the first week he was here. There was nothing new in any of that."  
  
Jack sat patiently. It was difficult to argue with a man who didn't yell back and eventually Kendall gave up, unsatisfied but exhausted. Jack returned to his office, studiously avoiding Marshall and his inquisitive glances, and locked his door. He placed the file folder with its bewildering contents on his desk and stared for an hour at absolutely nothing.  
  
Sark was a psychopath. Charming and bright, eager to please and utterly amoral. He had been responsible for more deaths than Jack suspected he could even count. He was brutal and efficient and exactly what he had been created to be. He could also be unexpectedly ingenuous, frighteningly honest, and he was still so terribly young. He was not innocent, but it was apparent that neither was Sark entirely to blame for what he had become. Irina's careful manipulations had almost guaranteed that he had never truly been given a choice. Jack was too analytical not to recognize the uncomfortable parallels.  
  
He wasn't certain how much later, but eventually he found himself standing in the observation room again. The boy was sprawled bonelessly on the small cot, sleeping off the effects of the remaining drugs in his veins. As Jack watched there was an interminably slow transformation from the chemically induced relaxation to an instinctive and habitual tension. Sark's legs drew up as he pulled his arms beneath him for warmth, tucking one hand under his cheek in an unnervingly childlike gesture. The guards hadn't bothered to cover him with the thin blanket that still lay neatly folded at his feet when they'd returned his limp body to the cell, and the closer he scrabbled to consciousness the more pronounced his shivering became.  
  
When the guards' shift changed Jack realized that he had been staring at the small monitor for more than three hours. In all that time he had come to no new revelations, made no decisions about his next move. He had simply been watching the boy sleep while a thousand random thoughts ran unchecked through his brain. All questions and no answers. He rubbed wearily at grainy eyes and left the observation room as silently as he'd entered.  
  
* * * *  
  
It became an unwilling, almost unconscious ritual. An hour here, twenty minutes there. Ostensibly it was to refine his profile of Sark should Kendall or anyone else wonder at this new habit. It would have been difficult to justify had anyone pressed for results or even asked what precisely he expected to learn from watching the boy read or practice tai chi or fold careful and elaborate paper airplanes that soared beautifully and crashed into the glass walls without a sound. Jack wasn't sure that he could justify it even to himself. No idle curiosity had ever brought him to this cell when his ex-wife had occupied it. Now he was perpetually surprised to find his footsteps leading him inexorably toward it whenever he had a spare moment between meetings and missions. Marshall had tentatively attempted to approach him about Sark's new unofficial "status", but Jack had usually been able to deflect him. Usually...  
  
"He doesn't know?" Marshall repeated, sitting on the edge of his chair as he leaned onto Jack's desk.  
  
Jack shook his head. "She never told him."  
  
"And you? Are you going to tell him?"  
  
"There would be no point."  
  
"Well... but..." the engineer struggled for words. "Don't you... Doesn't he deserve to know?"  
  
"He deserves the cell he's sitting in," Jack replied sharply. Then he exhaled wearily and shrugged. "Beyond that... I don't know what purpose it would serve. I don't know that he needs to know - or that he would even want to."  
  
"If it were me, I'd want to know," Marshall said. "But then again, I'm not him. Which is good because frankly I still find him a little scary. Well, a lot scary. He's not normal - no offense. Don't know why I said that," he rattled on quickly at Jack's aggrieved frown. "I mean it's not like you were the one who raised him to be the way he is, it's just... Do you really think he's better off not knowing?"  
  
Yes, Jack thought. In some respects, he is. Most of Jack's profiling had been done months ago, before he'd known the truth himself. He knew that Sark was resigned to the belief that he'd been abandoned by some poor simple Irish girl who hadn't been able to cope with raising him. This belief paradoxically gave him strength; he was comforted by the knowledge that he had risen far above anything that had ever been expected of him. Would it be any comfort to him to learn that he had become exactly what was expected of him after all? Would it come as any consolation that he was not as alone as he'd always assumed - that he did have a family, indifferent to him though it was? Jack wasn't sure. Somehow he doubted it. But still...  
  
"I don't know," he said. "I just don't know."  
  
"What about Kendall?"  
  
"No." On that at least he was more certain. This information changed nothing, Jack knew. It was even more irrelevant to the Agency than his prior relationship to Irina had been. It didn't affect Sark's value to them, what he could offer, or what he had done. It wouldn't matter to Kendall in the slightest who the boy's parents were. He was no leverage for or against Jack and just as unlikely to influence a woman who had already shot her own daughter. To the CIA this new little fragment of information would be nothing more than a footnote. And since it didn't matter, there was no need to further complicate the situation.  
  
"Yeah, I guess not," Marshall's head bobbed in understanding. "Everybody already thinks your family is about as dysfunctional as it can get. It's probably best not to add ah... Sorry. So you're really not going to tell him? Sark, not Kendall. You're not going to let him know who he really is?"  
  
"No," Jack said at last. He knew that the drugs which had loosened the inhibitions of Sark's tongue had done nothing to hinder his recollection of the latest interrogation. The boy was genetically predisposed toward a high intelligence and had been carefully groomed to ensure that potential was realized. With his analytical skills and little else to occupy his time, Jack knew that it would be sooner rather than later when he began to make some deductions about the nature of the more unusual questions. "I don't think it will be necessary."  
  
* * * * 


	3. three

* * * *  
  
"Do you really believe that this is necessary?"  
  
"Damn it, Jack. If I didn't think it was necessary I wouldn't be asking you to do it," Kendall said in exasperation. "Sark is the best link we have to Ibarra's operations. He's the only informant we have who's ever actually seen the inside of that Curitiba compound. Find out what he knows."  
  
"And how credible as source are we considering him?" Jack asked. "He's been out of play for over half a year."  
  
"I guess we'll let you be the judge of that. Much time as you've spent working on his profile, you ought to be able to read him better than his own mother could. Just see what he knows, Jack. We'll decide on credibility once we see what we've got."  
  
Jack headed toward the isolated sublevel with some trepidation. This was the first time that he'd been sent to officially question Sark since his unauthorized interview several weeks ago. Despite his subsequent hours of observation, he had not spoken to the boy at all in the meanwhile. As he approached the cell he saw that Sark was reading, stretched out on the floor as usual. Books were carefully screened and approved before being passed to the prisoner and Jack knew that this one was Henry Fielding's "Tom Jones". Sark had specifically requested it, knowing undoubtedly what conclusions of his own Jack would be drawing. It could not have been coincidental. He stopped midway down the transparent wall and Sark conscientiously marked his page before rising to meet him. The boy stood a few feet from the glass with a mocking grin on his face.  
  
"Hi Dad," Sark said. "Am I still grounded or can I come out and play?"  
  
It was a glib opening salvo and could have been interpreted by any other observer as merely another example of how nonchalant he was about his confinement. Jack knew better. He could also see something behind the smirk. Sark's grin said that he understood what Jack's questions had been driving at but that he didn't think there was any truth in it. His eyes, however, said something quite different. There was a fear there - an unwilling acknowledgement that Jack would not have broached the possibility without incontrovertible evidence. He knew, Jack realized. But he didn't believe.  
  
"Intel has you at Carlos Ibarra's Curitiba safe house a little over a year ago," Jack began as if Sark hadn't spoken. "Tell me everything you know about his security."  
  
A puzzled expression flickered across Sark's face but was quickly schooled with resignation into a more professional mode. As usual, he never asked why the information was needed. He simply began to recite all that he could remember. As Jack listened to the list of alarm systems, bodyguards, attack dogs, and other interesting features of Ibarra's security he studied the lean, fair-haired boy more closely than he'd been able to do for weeks on the other side of a television monitor.  
  
And as he stood there images rose unbidden of a past that had never been. A past where Laura had "died" but a year later, leaving him with not one but two small children to raise alone. In that instant he saw what Irina had done - not just to this boy, but to himself and even to Sydney. This conscienceless young man - so bright and talented and full of potential should have been his. Jack should have been the one to raise him. He should have been an ally. He should have fought with Sydney over the last slice of pizza or whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher - not over Rambaldi artifacts in the Antarctic wastelands or Red Army office buildings. The sudden thought of how often and how near his children had come to killing each other in the past couple of years chilled him.  
  
Almost without pausing to consider his actions, he removed a well-worn sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. In the guise of displaying a preliminary approach plan he unfolded the paper and pressed it against the glass. To his credit, Sark's monologue faltered only momentarily as he scanned the four labeled columns with their painfully obvious findings. Jack could see the moment of comprehension in the boy's eyes. Jack had seen that expression once before - on his daughter's face nearly two years ago. Irina had done more than betray him and abandon their daughter. He had once thought that this was more than enough, but now he knew.  
  
"Is this the most current intelligence you have on the compound?" Sark asked, tapping a on the glass separating him from the page of DNA strands.  
  
"It is."  
  
"And how do I know that it's accurate? It looks different from what I remember." There was a slightly frantic edge to his tone, but Jack doubted that it would be evident to anyone not listening for it.  
  
"What reason would we have to give you faulty intelligence when we need your cooperation?"  
  
"None," came Sark's soft reply. "There wouldn't be any point to it at all."  
  
As Jack turned to leave, Sark returned to his book on the floor. Although the pages were open, Jack knew that he was not seeing the words. There was an unfocused look in the boy's eyes as his thoughts were far from the eighteenth-century novel. Jack wasn't entirely sure why he'd done it. He hadn't come down here intending to reveal so much, but looking into those clear blue eyes and into the past that should have been, he hadn't been able to stop himself. It was too late though, he told himself. Much too late to reclaim something that he'd never had. Wasn't it?  
  
* * * *  
  
Hours later Jack Bristow stood unobserved in the shadows of the corridor. The lights of the cell had been dimmed for the night but it wasn't truly dark. Although Sark couldn't be seen on the security camera, his position was clear from Jack's vantage point. The boy sat on the floor at the end of the cot. His arms were wrapped around his shins, forehead resting on his knees. Jack could only speculate as to what might be going through his mind, but he thought that he had a fairly good idea.  
  
Everything that Sark had once thought made him special was now being called into question. He had not attracted Irina's attention because of anything exceptional about him. He had simply been expedient. Far from overcoming the accident of an inconvenient birth, he had been deliberately orphaned and his seemingly improbable rise from street brat to notorious prominence had been engineered from the beginning. Whether that decision had been Irina's or if it had come from her KGB superiors, the results were the same. Deprived of that first and most basic human connection between mother and child, he had never quite mastered the ability to forge others. He had grown up in isolation calculated to foster the self-reliance that he had been so proud of. The only focus in his life became a driving ambition to prove his own worth and he had played right into their hands. These were all just steps taken to ensure that he became the perfect operative and in only a few years Irina and her colleagues had been able to mold the lonely ambitious child into a peerless agent - just as they'd always intended.  
  
It was a lot to absorb, Jack knew. Part of him had begun to wonder if even this had been part of Irina's machinations. She had given them Sark so that he could give them Sloane. But was that the only reason? He hated to overestimate her, but he knew that it was also hazardous to underestimate her. Could she possibly have wanted Sark in CIA custody, knowing that they had the genetic database in their possession as well? Had she wanted Jack to discover his son? Had she wanted Sark to learn what had been done to him? Or was he giving her too much credit? He didn't know anymore.  
  
A small, sudden movement within the cell returned his attention to the current situation. It was a convulsive twitch of the shoulders that resulted in even more tightly clenched muscles. Whatever inner demons plagued him, whatever difficulties he was having in adjusting to his new worldview, it appeared to Jack that Sark was slowly losing ground.   
  
The boy didn't look up when the cell door opened in a few minutes. Nor did he stir when Jack sat down on the empty cot. The only sounds were that of the air conditioning unit and slightly uneven breathing.  
  
"I could kill you," Sark said at last, though he still didn't raise his head.  
  
"That wouldn't accomplish anything," Jack replied, unruffled. There had been no threat in his tone anyway; it had merely been an observation.  
  
"Might make me feel better."  
  
"For how long?"  
  
There was a small sigh in the darkness. "Probably not long enough to make it worth the effort."  
  
The silence returned and stretched on for several more minutes.  
  
"It doesn't change anything." Another observation with no tinge of emotion behind it.  
  
"No," Jack agreed. "It doesn't." Out of the corner of his eye he could see the tension slowly leaving Sark's body. Whether it was resignation or shock finally setting in, he wasn't sure.  
  
"Who else knows?"  
  
"Only Marshall."  
  
"That explains the 'how', I suppose."  
  
Jack watched as the boy shifted slightly, moving only enough to lean his head on the edge of the cot rather than his knees.  
  
"You know, this isn't precisely how I expected my life to turn out," Sark went on after a bit. "For one thing, I'd rather hoped for a better view, preferably from a nice villa in southern Italy." The words were flippant, but Jack could hear the profound sadness in his voice now. "It's cold in here."  
  
The last statement startled him as the tone edged closer to despair. The cell was indeed cooler than it probably should have been, but that wasn't entirely what Sark had meant. They were such simple words, but Jack heard a frightening depth in them. The boy was afraid. For the first time in all the months he'd been confined here, Jack realized that he was finally admitting just how little control he had of his own life now. Perhaps how little control he'd ever had of it.  
  
Without understanding quite how it happened, Jack saw his own hand brush the top of the boy's dark blond head. He could feel Sark's sudden tension and heard his breath catch. There was a long moment of complete stillness. Then Jack felt the first tremor. It built soundlessly and Jack felt Sark's head turn beneath his hand to muffle the ragged gasps against the cot. Despite the fact Jack knew that he was a terrorist, an assassin, a trained sociopath, all he could see in that instant was one very lost little boy.  
  
Eventually the shaking stopped and Jack listened to Sark's breathing return to near normal. Neither of them moved or spoke for a long while. It was with some surprise - but not much - that Jack realized his hand was moving after all in a small, soothing motion against the boy's head.   
  
"You need a haircut," he said absently. Sark's snort of amusement still had an uneasy edge to it, but he didn't shrug the hand away either.  
  
"Now what?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"If I promise to be good, could I get out of here to go on missions? You let Irina."  
  
It was Jack's turn to chuckle quietly at the inanity of the suggestion as much as at the winsome tone. "You could promise to be a saint, but the Agency won't fall for that one again."  
  
"Things can change. You never know. You might need me out there one day. I am very good at what I do. It seems a shame to waste all this talent." Sark paused and Jack could tell that he was searching for a new angle. He was almost impressed with the boy's resilience. "Let me look for Sydney."  
  
Jack's hand jerked. There had been quite a few interrogation sessions since Sydney's disappearance before he'd been satisfied that Sark didn't know any more about it than anyone else seemed to. His fingers tightened reflexively and the boy winced.  
  
"I don't know anything more than I've already told you," Sark spoke quickly. "But you know I'm as good as she is. Let me look for her. Your Agency isn't getting anywhere, is it? Let me try. What do you have to lose?"  
  
* * * *  
  
"You've got to be kidding!" Kendall stared at him in disbelief. "Need I remind you that this is exactly the sort of thing that lost us Derevko?"  
  
"I am well aware of that," Jack conceded patiently. "But I also think that this is a feasible course of action. Sark is resourceful. He's as well-trained and proficient as any CIA operative and better than most. You've seen how capable he is in the field. He's..."  
  
"He's a homicidal bastard who will work for anybody who pays him enough!"  
  
"Then we just make sure that nobody gets close enough to make him a better offer."  
  
"Do you really believe that you can give him enough leash to do what you want him to do without giving him so much that he vanishes without a trace? Just like Derevko?"  
  
"I do."  
  
Kendall scowled at him for a long moment. "So help me, Jack, if you lose another one..."  
  
"If he can turn up anything at all on what's happened to my daughter, it's worth that risk."  
  
* * * * 


	4. four

* * * *  
  
Jack wondered, not for the first time, why he had agreed to this. The answer, he concluded once again, was that he had no other options. The Agency had no better operatives that weren't too emotionally involved to be completely professional in this endeavor. Although he knew that Agents Vaughn and Dixon were both skilled in their fields, neither was currently at his peak performance and Jack wasn't entirely convinced that either of them could find and retrieve his daughter without getting themselves - or Sydney - killed in the process. He had even less confidence in more unfamiliar agents.  
  
Though he still had reservations about Sark as well, questions about his competency were not among them. The boy's calls in the field would not be clouded by any irrational sentimentality or slowed by hesitation over moral concerns. If Sark had decided that finding Sydney was in his own best interest, Jack had no doubts that he would approach the project with his usual ruthless efficiency. The trick, Jack knew, would be to maintain his infamously tenuous and transient fealty.  
  
"What do you need?" he had asked.  
  
"What can I have?" the boy had replied with a grin. He had then shrugged philosophically at Jack's unamused stare and tried again. "I've been incommunicado for eight months. I'll need to reestablish a presence in certain circles. I need information. Give me something I can 'market'... unless you want me to find that on my own as well." Jack had given him another stony look. "Fine," Sark continued, his tone ever so slightly aggrieved though Jack had seen the flicker of amusement. "I'll use my own resources. But I'll need to confirm that my intel is still current."  
  
"Anything you offer will have to be approved first."  
  
"Of course."  
  
Which had led them here. A small army of men ranged around the terminal where Sark sat, fingers flying deftly over the keyboard. Marshall hovered over one shoulder, his expression periodically alternating between interest, awe, and horror, as he attempted to verify that Sark never exceeded the restrictions that had been placed upon his computer access. Jack stood at the boy's other shoulder, following the progress. Personally he thought that Kendall's insistence on a contingent of fully armed guards was a little excessive. Far from intimidating Sark, as the director had surely intended, Jack was aware that he found the unnecessary show of force more than a bit comical.   
  
There had been another conversation.  
  
"What do you want?" he had asked this time.  
  
"I want my life back."  
  
"Realistically."  
  
The boy had stood quite still, gazing at a spot somewhere above Jack's head for a moment before replying. "You know it doesn't matter to me who I work for, and just between the two of us, it really doesn't matter what I'm paid. I'm not in this game for the money or the politics or even the rush. I do it because it's the only thing in the world that I know how to do and I'm good at it. Just let me do it. Let me work for you and I'll do whatever you need."  
  
Jack had studied him thoughtfully through the glass, hearing the seamless blend of truth and lies and trying to separate them. "We've already given you the same deal we offered Derevko - your life for your cooperation..."  
  
"That's not what I'm proposing."   
  
He had almost laughed aloud as he realized what the boy was requesting. "The CIA isn't quite as... flexible as SD-6 was. We're not in the habit of recruiting the opposition as field agents. Not without reliable leverage. You've flipped on every business associate you've ever had. We have absolutely no guarantee that you wouldn't do the same thing to us at the first opportunity and every reason to believe that you would."  
  
"You could trust me."  
  
Jack did laugh then. Sark permitted himself a wry grin.  
  
"No," Jack had said, shaking his head slowly. "You know we can't. We have nothing to assure your allegiance once you're outside these walls. Your word, unfortunately, is rather less than sufficient."  
  
"What would it take?"  
  
"It can't be done."  
  
"One way or another," the boy had said. "Everything can be done."   
  
* * * *  
  
"I just want to go on record as stating that I think this is a bad idea."  
  
"I'll add your name to the list, Agent Vaughn," Kendall said dryly. Both of their voices crackled over the earpiece Jack wore. He could hear their annoyance despite the thousands of miles between them.   
  
"I don't think they like me very much," Sark grinned at Jack across the airplane's cargo bay.  
  
"You are a singularly unpopular person," he agreed. The boy was clearly enjoying his first foray out of confinement in over nine months, but Jack wasn't sure yet whether or not to be alarmed by Sark's annoyingly cheerful attitude. He hadn't been able to determine if the sunny manner was simply unaffected pleasure at finally being able to do something active or if it was a sign of optimism at his first chance of escape in the better part of a year.  
  
Jack's personal estimate of attempted flight was relatively low. Kendall had agreed with his assessment that most traditional methods of tagging Sark would ultimately be a waste of taxpayers' money. Judging by SD-6's spectacular lack of success in the endeavor, even passive tracking devices would probably be untenable. With Marshall's considerable help, however, they had come up with a potentially viable scheme.  
  
"Completely organic," Marshall had explained. "Virtually undetectable. And could you maybe not mention to him that I had anything to do with this?"  
  
It consisted of a harmlessly biodegradable capsule designed to dissolve in thirty-six hours. Unless it was removed within that timeframe, a lethal dose of poison would be released when the capsule breached. Sark had been rendered unconscious for the injection, making it impossible for him to know where it lay and ensuring that even should he escape from under Jack's watchful eye it was highly unlikely that he would be able to locate the capsule before it killed him.  
  
"Just make sure you don't forget where you've put it," the boy had said just before they knocked him out. He had shown no fear then and showed no worry now. For all he knew, the capsule and its deadly contents could be entirely hypothetical, but Jack doubted that he would be willing to risk it. Sark was not a gambler. Which was fortunate because the capsule was all too real, even if it did have a slightly longer lifespan than he had been told. There had been a minor concern over migration; they had wanted to make sure there would be time to find the capsule in the off chance that it managed to shift within his body during the mission.   
  
The mission. Sark's first opportunity to reestablish his credibility among the world's shadier intelligence elite. The boy was nothing if not ambitious, Jack had concluded. Before his capture last spring he had been sitting on some rather innovative new pharmaceutical formulae which could have commanded top dollar on an open market. Now for it to be of any value the primary research, nine months further developed, needed to be destroyed, leveling the playing field once more. The CIA had reluctantly decided that the drugs in question were of merely academic value - and more importantly, not of American manufacture. An operation to eradicate the original research lab and its findings had been approved and carried out. The next phase of Sark's plan involved the marketing of the again invaluable data. He had finally been given leave to make the final exchange in person since the buyer had refused to deal with anyone else.  
  
"Remember," Jack cautioned him once again as they crossed the Atlantic. "That thirty-six hours is an estimate. The capsule has never been field-tested and no one knows exactly how long it will take to remove. We'll have a twelve hour window in Geneva to meet the contact and make the deal."  
  
"I think I'll manage."  
  
"You will do this by the book, Baby Bear," Kendall crackled over the satellite link again. "If that poison doesn't work fast enough, remember that he does have full permission to shoot you if he thinks it's necessary."  
  
Sark merely rolled his eyes at the disembodied voice. "Could we have chosen a more ridiculous code name?" he wondered aloud, ignoring the threats.  
  
"If you prefer," Jack said. "We could go back to the original suggestion - Goldilocks."  
  
"And you people call yourselves professionals? I really don't think I'd blame Sydney if it turns out that she left all of this voluntarily. Don't tell me that hasn't occurred to you," Sark continued as spluttering filled their earpieces. "Sydney hated this job. It cost her so much and gained her so little. You don't think that the perceived loss of both Tippin and Calfo couldn't have pushed her just one shove too far? That she didn't want out, away from all of this? Away from all of you?"  
  
"Shut up," Jack told him. He didn't raise his voice, but the threat in his eyes was considerably more potent - and immediate - than Kendall's had been. Sark subsided. The rest of the flight was spent in silence.  
  
* * * * 


	5. five

"I am sorry," Sark said quietly, eyes not wavering from the road before them. Jack didn't need to ask why. They had exchanged no words that were not strictly necessary since the boy's ill-received comments on the plane several hours ago. "Please believe that I'm not trying to be difficult," he continued. "But you do need to accept the possibility that this disappearance could be of her own choosing. You need to be just as prepared for the chance that when I find her she might not want to come back, as you are for the chance that I discover she's dead or a prisoner. You need..."  
  
"I know what I need," Jack snapped back at him. The car's interior suddenly seemed too small for both of them. "I need to know what happened to my daughter. You think I haven't considered the possibility that she has chosen to turn her back on this life? You think I don't realize how much doing this work has scarred her? That I didn't see how it was tearing her apart? I'm prepared to accept that she might not want to come back. I would even understand it." His voice dropped just as abruptly as it had risen. "I just need to know that she's all right," he said tiredly. "I just want to know what happened."  
  
Sark nodded slowly. Jack noted absently that the only evidence of his surprise had been a sudden widening of his eyes at the beginning. Now the boy merely looked pensive.  
  
"What will you do then?" Sark asked. "If we find that she doesn't want to come back?"  
  
"Then I'll let her go."  
  
"Just like that?"  
  
"Yes." It would be the least he could do, he thought. After all he had already done. "But just because I've accepted the possibility," Jack added aloud. "It doesn't mean that's my prime theory. I still strongly believe that this was not her choice. We will assume that she has been abducted until firm evidence suggests otherwise."  
  
"Of course."  
  
Neither man voiced the fact that evidence of anything at all - no matter how flimsy - would be been more than they had now.  
  
* * * *  
  
The exchange had gone off without a hitch. Sark had been his usual charming self, his voice carrying easily to the parabolic LRLD. He was never out of Jack's sight as he handed over the research disks and confirmed the wire transfer without appearing to arouse the slightest suspicion in the Canadian buyer. The next step in his reintegration seemed to have been successful. Word would undoubtedly begin to circulate through the underground community that Mr. Sark had spent the past several months carving out his own free-agency niche independent of either Sloane or Derevko. Soon he would be able to begin asking questions of his own.  
  
Despite the success of the mission, however, Sark's previous bright mood seemed to have evaporated by the time they returned to the airfield. He had lapsed into a sullen sort of silence that Jack felt could not be entirely explained by the prospect of returning to his cell. Casting his mind back over their earlier conversation, Jack eventually realized what was the most likely cause of the boy's current discontent.  
  
Sark hadn't liked his answer. He hadn't like the possibility that Sydney might be given a choice that he was not allowed. Jack had long since surmised that there was little difference between the two of them - Sydney and Sark - in the boy's own eyes. In truth, Jack had to admit that if Sark had begun his career in the CIA instead of at Derevko's side there was little to distinguish him from any other agent employed by the American government. Viewing the situation from Sark's perspective, Jack could almost understand how unfair the boy surely saw it.   
  
He was jolted from his musings by the movements of a guard. As the man approached Sark with a pair of handcuffs he realized that they must be nearly ready to land.  
  
"Those really aren't necessary," Sark said irritably. "If I didn't make a break for it in Switzerland, why on earth would I try it in the middle of a California Air Force Base?"  
  
"Protocol," the man said. "Don't make me do this the hard way."  
  
Jack caught the flash of a wide reckless grin and a sudden obstinate flare in the boy's eyes.  
  
"Stephen!"  
  
Jack wasn't entirely certain which of them was more startled. The sharply parental warning had slipped out unconsciously and he had no idea why. Sark seemed just as stunned; whether by the use of his given name or by the implications of the tone itself, Jack couldn't begin to guess. The guard, unaware of precisely what had just occurred, snapped the handcuffs around Sark's wrists almost unnoticed. Jack noted with an odd detachment that the boy's expression had shifted from the brooding scowl he'd worn since leaving Geneva to a look of utter bemusement. He wondered if his own expression was comparable.   
  
After a moment of wide-eyed staring Sark abruptly looked away. He did not glance up again even when they had landed, and he managed to avoid meeting Jack's gaze as he was led to surgery. By then his expression had shifted again - to an intensely thoughtful look. Jack would have given a large sum of money to know what was going on behind those troubled blue eyes.  
  
* * * * 


	6. six

* * * *  
  
Two days later Jack was still trying to determine exactly what had occurred on the airplane that night. Based on all that he knew of Sark, putting up a struggle over the handcuffs would have been extremely uncharacteristic. Ordinarily he would have expected sardonic compliance from the boy. Perhaps a condescending smirk; a hint of arrogant amusement at their presumed fear of him. Fighting with the guard over something so small and ultimately pointless was a futile gesture, immature and unproductive. Efficiency had always been one of Sark's most distinguishable characteristics, along with impassivity and level-headedness. There were only three reasons that Jack had been able to come up with to explain such aberrant behavior. Either there had been a strategic purpose for the struggle that Jack could not see, confinement was beginning to wear on Sark far more than he had imagined, or there was something deeper going on.   
  
He didn't believe the first and had seen no other evidence of the second. It was the third alternative that concerned Jack the most. Immature, he thought again. It had been a childish impulse that had prompted the sudden stubborn desire to refuse a quiet submission to the handcuffs. Jack had a suspicion that all childish impulses had been suppressed in Sark even while he had still actually been a child. That they would begin to surface again now was disturbing. Jack wondered if the boy's own subconscious was betraying him.  
  
For the first time in his life, Sark knew that he was someone's child - not abstractly, but specifically. He now knew exactly who his parents were. Was he beginning to think of himself as their child, Jack wondered? Had that realization unconsciously loosened some long-stifled inhibitions within him? Was Sark acting like a child because suddenly, unexpectedly, finally… he was one?  
  
And that brought Jack back to the implications that he had been trying ineffectively to ignore. Although intellectually he had accepted the indisputable findings that Marshall had uncovered, he hadn't believed that his emotional view of the situation had altered much at all. Regardless of his heritage, the boy was simply the most valuable operative he currently had at his disposal to help him find Sydney. He was cold-blooded, hardnosed, and indifferent. He was Sark.  
  
Except that Jack had called him Stephen.  
  
He had called the boy by his given name in a tone and manner that had demanded and expected instinctive obedience. It had not been a directive from a senior agent to a subordinate. It had been the unmistakable command of a father to a son and it had been evident that despite having never heard it before, Sark had clearly recognized it for what it was. With that name, spoken in that tone, Jack had acknowledged their relationship more explicitly than he'd ever done before.  
  
They had agreed from the outset that their awareness of their connection changed nothing. Yet somehow, somewhere… something had.  
  
* * * *  
  
In the wake of the successful mission - both in terms of reestablishing Sark's credibility and in testing the poison capsule - Kendall had grown a bit more comfortable with the concept of Sark in the field and more confident of their ability to control him. A second mission was authorized within weeks. Jack was not surprised to discover at the briefing that Kendall had realized just how useful the boy could be to them in this capacity. He was only surprised at how little time it had taken the director to warm to the idea.   
  
Superficially the new assignment would serve to increase Sark's visibility in the right circles. For the CIA, however, it was an opportunity to gain intelligence that might otherwise have been much more difficult to obtain. In the two years prior to his American incarceration, Sark had begun to establish a formidable reputation. Enigmatic though his motives and true loyalties might be, it had become a widely known fact this charmingly harmless-looking young man was not a player to be taken lightly. Doors would be opened for him that not even an agent as skilled as Sydney would easily have been allowed to pass through. Now that Kendall had the means to exploit this break, he seemed intent on using it to the fullest extent possible.  
  
"And all for the price of room, board, and the occasional minor surgery," Sark observed dryly. "I used to get paid quite a lot for this, you know." His tone was carefully flippant and Jack knew he was assiduously trying to avoid any sort of interaction which would recall that uncomfortable moment of connection to mind. The boy's toughest walls had been resurrected and only Sark the hardened spy spoke through them.  
  
"I thought it wasn't about the money," Jack said, not any more willing to push the boundaries again either.  
  
"Well, it isn't. But if I'm going to be perforated every time we do this, I think I ought to get some sort of compensation. That last scar still itches."  
  
"How about for compensation we don't ship you to Camp Harris when you get back?" Kendall growled through the satellite link.  
  
"So nice to see that everyone's sense of humor is still intact. You do remember that I'm cooperating willingly, don't you?"  
  
Sark didn't seem to expect an answer and Kendall didn't bother to reply. In the silence that ensued Jack studied the boy seated across from him on the plane once again. Sark didn't fidget, he realized. Instead, he seemed to settle into a meditative trance curiously similar to what Jack had occasionally observed Irina employ while in their custody. Or perhaps not so curiously. Sark had been with her for half his life. It was only natural that he had picked up some of her practices. Or been taught them. It was with another small jolt that Jack reminded himself that this boy was not merely a precociously talented operative. Sark had been explicitly trained for this job from the time he was nine years old. He already had as much field experience as many agents Jack knew who were twice his age. His apparent youth was still unnervingly deceptive.  
  
"What about another blanket?" Sark said suddenly. "If you're going to persist in keeping me in that ice box, could I at least leverage another blanket out of this mission?"  
  
"We'll discuss that option later, Goldilocks," came the terse, crackling response.  
  
Jack barely heard the soft mutter as Sark prepared to slip back into his meditation. "Goldilocks… Perverse bastards."  
  
As Jack continued his observation he recalled another time when the boy had complained of his cell's frigidity. As if abruptly remembering the same event, Sark's eyes opened once more. The boy met his gaze without the defensive screening that had been there for the past few weeks. Now there was simply a weariness in his expression that made him look older than Jack had ever seen him. Suddenly one corner of his mouth twitched upward in a wry, crooked grin and a little of the tiredness seemed to lift.  
  
"I just want another blanket, athair. It doesn't mean anything."  
  
* * * * 


	7. seven

* * * *  
  
"I just want another blanket, athair. It doesn't mean anything."  
  
One little word tucked in among a few simple phrases and their nonexistent relationship had shifted once again.  
  
It was only later that Jack fully realized just how much he had underestimated the boy. Not until the mission was over and he had retreated to the sanctuary of his empty house had he allowed himself to begin analyzing all the implications of what had occurred on the plane this time.  
  
One surely intentional consequence had been to unsettle him, Jack was certain. Much as he had attempted to avoid thinking too much about the significance of Sark's new vocabulary, he knew that he had been subtly off-balance for the remainder of their mission. For nearly two days the ghost of an infuriatingly mischievous grin had flickered across the boy's face, vanishing every time Jack looked at him directly. This had the familiarity of the old Sark; the twisted humor of his pre-internment. But there was something jarringly new in it as well; a bit of humor not so dark. The nearest sentiment Jack could assign to it was good-natured teasing and that alone would have been disconcerting enough without its more complicated subtext.  
  
Apart from the shock value, however, and the minor amusement Sark had derived from his reaction, Jack knew that there was a more serious undertone to the incident. Upon reflection, he was impressed with the elegant simplicity of what the boy had managed to convey with a single word - not in English, nor in Russian, but in Irish Gaelic. Its meaning indicated an acceptance of who Jack was to him, but its language was an assertion of his own status. He might be Jack and Irina's son, but he was neither a Bristow nor a Derevko. It was as much a declaration of non-alignment as it was an acknowledgement of his parentage.   
  
It was interesting, Jack thought almost off-handedly, how adaptable both of his children were to monumental revelations. It was apparent that sometime in the past few weeks his persistently self-reliant son had managed to come to terms with this unusual situation without any further input from Jack at all. His casual use of the term "athair" and his new easy manner during the rest of the mission indicated that he had made his own peace with his father. It made him wonder precisely how Sark currently saw their relationship. He was fairly certain that the boy no longer viewed him as the opposition. Did he now see them as allies? Was there any sort of trust between them - or merely truce? If Sark was professing neutrality, had Jack's standing been raised in his mind, Irina's lowered, or something of both?  
  
* * * *  
  
"Is now a bad time?"  
  
Jack looked up from his computer to see Marshall standing in the doorway of his office. He nodded toward the empty chair, suspecting that he already knew what this visit was about.  
  
"I know that technically this isn't any of my business," Marshall began. "But I just wanted a little clarification on who's supposed to know what now. Because the last time I checked, you'd decided not to tell Sark or Kendall about… well, Sark. But clearly Sark does know about Sar… er, who he is, and if he keeps saying things like he did on this last mission then Kendall is going to figure it out too. Then he'll start with the 'who knew first' and the 'who told who' and the 'why didn't anybody tell him' and when it eventually gets back to me, I'd like to know what I'm supposed to say."  
  
"To Kendall?" Jack asked, hoping he'd followed the train of thought correctly.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"To Kendall?"  
  
"Yes. If Kendall asks you anything about Sark, direct him to me."  
  
"Okay, good, because I wasn't sure if I should explain or be like 'Database? What database?' or maybe just…"  
  
"Just direct him to me."  
  
"Right. Direct him to you." Marshall nodded, repeating the instruction as if to reassure himself. "But he's not going to find out, right?" he couldn't seem to help adding. "I mean, Sark is going to stop doing things like calling you 'Dad' when he knows you're being broadcast and/or recorded, right? Because he really needs to stop doing that. Although," he continued. "I don't suppose 'a-hir' sounds like much of anything if you're not listening for it. Maybe a sneeze or a cough or something. It's not like anybody else is expecting him to call you 'father' in Irish… or in any other language. You don't really even look alike. Except when you're making that face. Yeah, that one - the 'Marshall, stop talking now' face. Oh."   
  
"It was a one-time indiscretion, I'm sure," Jack said. "He's made the point he intended to make with it. I doubt it will happen again. Was there anything else?"  
  
"No, that was it…. Except… It's just that I thought you'd decided not to tell him - Sark," he clarified once again. "I was just wondering why you changed your mind."  
  
"I didn't," Jack said after an uncomfortably long silence. "He had already come to that conclusion by the time I confirmed it."  
  
"But aren't you worried now that he'll try to use that somehow?"  
  
Jack smiled grimly. "He already is. But I believe he recognizes that we're even in that respect."  
  
Marshall nodded slowly in understanding. "He plays you to get out of that cell. You use him to find Sydney. You know," he said thoughtfully. "Some days I'm really glad that I'm just a Flinkman."  
  
* * * * 


	8. eight

* * * *  
  
Over the course of the next several months, as Kendall became more convinced of Sark's usefulness and less leery of his unpredictable allegiance, the boy began to be a familiar figure in the field even as others were seen there with less frequency. To Jack's consternation, control of these missions was gradually being eased out of his hands. Sark's skills were being diverted to other, more vital projects in the director's eyes and Jack's attention was being redirected as well.   
  
To be honest, he had been expecting this sooner or later. He had only hoped that it would be later. He couldn't blame Sark though, or even Kendall, he grudgingly admitted. The shift of focus in Sark's new assignments was merely a reflection of the growing belief within the Agency as a whole that Jack's personal crusade was becoming an increasingly hopeless cause. It had been a year since Sydney's disappearance and no one - not even Sark - had been able to come up with a single solid piece of evidence indicative of anything. In the prevailing view, which was close to becoming the official view, Sydney Bristow was presumed dead. Much as Jack hated it, most of the agents who once knew his daughter were gradually coming to the same conclusions - including the heartbroken man who sat in his office now.  
  
"I don't think I can do this anymore, Jack," Vaughn said quietly.   
  
Jack still couldn't quite fathom why the younger agent had assumed that Sydney's disappearance had brought them closer together. Perhaps it was because they both had been closer to her than anyone else that Vaughn felt more comfortable opening up to Jack. It didn't make Jack feel any more comfortable. Although he supposed that he had been half-preparing himself to accept Vaughn as a son-in-law one day, he didn't see how that translated into their presumed connection now.   
  
Their fragile bond became even more strained as their views began to diverge. After a year of utterly fruitless searching without a single lead, Vaughn was beginning to accept what everyone else already believed. He had fought as hard as Jack to keep the search going for months after most people had already begun to give up, but Jack had seen how it was killing him. Vaughn might have still harbored hope, but the doubts were slowly eating at him as well. Jack had pushed his doubts down as far as he could. He tried hard to imagine the younger man's position. He did believe that Vaughn truly loved his daughter. He could understand his hopelessness and frustration. He could even empathize with the pain he'd once felt at believing that he had lost the woman he loved. But he had very little understanding of Vaughn's growing fatalistic acceptance of that loss.   
  
He was never exactly at ease with these personal conversations, always eager for them to be over nearly as soon as they'd begun. His impatience today was not helped by the glimpse he was sure he'd had of a certain blond wraith in the hallway outside his door. When Vaughn left at last, the boy slipped into the office and the recently vacated chair.  
  
"He's an idiot," Sark began conversationally.  
  
"He's still in love."  
  
"Then we're in agreement. That's an incredibly stupid thing to do in this business... as you well know."  
  
It may have been intended as a dig, but Jack could see something in his darkened eyes that he doubted the boy had meant to reveal. He suspected that Sark had not learned this lesson the easy way either.  
  
"Didn't anyone ever teach you that eavesdropping is impolite?" he asked, unable - or perhaps unwilling - to mask how thin his patience had been worn already today.  
  
"Blame it on my poor upbringing," the boy shrugged carelessly. "I was actually raised to believe that sort of behavior should be positively encouraged."  
  
"I assume by the fact that you're skulking the halls without a leash this afternoon that Kendall is sending you on another mission soon."  
  
"I'm offended," Sark said, not looking so in the least. "I do not skulk. If anyone should ask, I'm currently locked in the terminal room on seven, reading up on the recent activities of the LTTE in Sri Lanka. I believe my minder has gone on a coffee break," he added. "I don't think that they're nearly as afraid of me as they used to be."  
  
"Is there a point to this visit or were you just bored?"  
  
Sark straightened in his chair, becoming professional at last. "Bellamare," he said. "Ring any bells? What about Rakoczy?"  
  
Jack shook his head. "Why should they?"  
  
"A few days ago I ran across a single passing reference to a Project Bellamare in one of the satellite tap transcripts that Kendall has me going over. Context was unclear, but it stuck with me. Yesterday I found a mention of a Rakoczy in Pyongyang, somehow involved with an off-book research program. You don't spend as much time as I have among the Rambaldi-obsessed without becoming attuned to every major and minor underground conspiracy theory there is. There is some sort of significance to those two names suddenly appearing in such close proximity."  
  
"Can you come up with any plausible rationale for making this worth my effort to understand where you're going? Do you suspect that there is a connection to Sloane?"  
  
"Possibly. Possibly not. As you know, I've always maintained that Sloane and Derevko are not the only two potential abductors of your daughter." Even in his weary and frustrated mood, Jack didn't fail to note the boy's detachment. "Sydney would be a valuable addition to anyone's organization," Sark continued. "And there are many of them with the capability to recruit her... by any means necessary. Project Bellamare seems to be some sort of training program. More than that I can't gather with my present resources."  
  
"You think that this could be a re-training program as well." It was more a statement than a question and the boy's nod confirmed it.  
  
"Possibly," Sark said again. "Kendall's keeping a fairly tight rein on where I go and what I look into. Well, he won't let me divert a Sri Lankan mission into North Korea anyway," he amended, with a slight grin at Jack's bland look. "And that's what I need - ground intell. I haven't been able to pick up anything else from any of the surveillance data I have access to. And yes, that does include some sources that I'm sure our dear director never approved."  
  
"I'm not sure that I can get you into Pyongyang any time soon," Jack said slowly. "Especially not with such insufficient confirmation that there's even anything to investigate."  
  
"There's something there," Sark assured him. "You've given me this chance because you know I can see things that your agents don't. Trust my instincts on this. Even if it turns out to be another dead-end on Sydney, there is still something in Project Bellamare worth the CIA's investigation."  
  
* * * * 


	9. nine

* * * *  
  
It was his third day in Pyongyang and Jack was getting tired of the waiting. One contact after another had told him the same thing. Yes, Bellamare was based here. Yes, Rakoczy was in the city. Yes, the next person they passed him along to would be able to answer his questions. Only the next person invariably had no answers - just more of the same banal reassurances and yet another contact for him to make.   
  
Not only was he becoming tired of the waiting, he was growing weary of the weather as well. It wasn't the first time he had wished that they could extend the lifespan of the capsule ensuring Sark's fidelity. If the boy could have been trusted in the field this long, Jack would have cheerfully thrown him out into this rain and humidity while retreating to a cooler, drier surveillance post himself.   
  
A dark figure separated itself from darker shadows and Jack stiffened at its approach. He began to mentally swear almost immediately. The inevitability of this encounter had always been in the back of his mind. He simply had not expected it to occur today.  
  
"Hello, Jack," Irina said evenly. "I see you've discovered that Sark can be quite cooperative when properly motivated."  
  
"He has his uses," he agreed, matching her dispassionate tone.  
  
"You were both observed in Cairo not long ago. He appears to be doing well."  
  
"Well enough, under the circumstances. Though he's no fonder of that cell than I presume you were."  
  
She smiled faintly. "I suspect he enjoys it rather less. The climate is probably a little too extreme for his liking."  
  
"He did negotiate for a blanket much more quickly than you did," he acceded. "You two had this planned from the beginning."  
  
"Would you believe me if I said no?" Her smile widened infinitesimally at his silence. "I came here for the same reason you did. I stayed because I knew that sooner or later this project would attract Sark's attention and eventually one of you would come."  
  
"One of us?"   
  
She tilted her head slightly and looked at him through narrowed eyes. "My sources have never been able to maintain surveillance on Sark in any single location for more than twenty hours. You have him tagged with some sort of time-sensitive device, I assume."  
  
"What is Project Bellamare?" he asked, ignoring her not-so-subtle probing just as she surely expected he would.   
  
"It's a biomedical engineering research program financed by a former Alliance splinter group. I could find no indication that this operation has ever considered the abduction or recruitment of foreign agents."  
  
"So we're just wasting our time here."  
  
"I'm saving you time here. Sark was right to suspect this project, but I've already investigated it. We could be so much more effective if we didn't duplicate our efforts."  
  
"Collaboration?"  
  
"I'm not asking for state secrets, Jack." There was a trace of exasperation in her voice. "I just want to find my daughter."  
  
"It's touching how concerned you are about your offspring."   
  
There was a small pause as she looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "I have always been concerned about… my offspring."  
  
"You have very interesting ways of showing it."  
  
"Your record as an exemplary parent isn't exactly spotless."   
  
Jack bit down on his vindictive retort. This bickering never got them anywhere. He scowled at Irina as he reorganized his thoughts, knowing that she was doing the same behind calculating eyes.  
  
"How do you propose orchestrating this collaboration?" he asked at last.  
  
"While we may not have prearranged this particular encounter, there are certain names, certain pseudonyms and codes that Sark will be able to identify once I begin instituting them."  
  
"What makes you think that he would agree to be an intermediary in this? Considering the provocation you've given him so far, unless this whole affair really was planned in advance, it might be a bit presumptuous to assume that he's willing to cooperate with you right now."   
  
"He has a very pragmatic view of this business," she said. "He understands that sometimes these things are necessary."  
  
"Are you certain that he does?"  
  
"He is a professional."  
  
"And if it isn't a professional issue?" he pressed. "How can you be so sure he won't take it personally?"   
  
"I think I'm a fairly good judge of his temperament," she said. A sharpness was beginning to creep into her voice. "I have known him for a very long time."  
  
"But how careful were you in all those years? Personally I've made certain that I have never lied to him."  
  
"How noble."  
  
"I've never sold him out."  
  
"If you'll recall, I turned him over to the CIA to save your life, Jack."  
  
"Which I do appreciate, but I wouldn't be so quick to assume that he's of the same opinion. I've never shot him… No, I'm sorry. That was our daughter you shot, wasn't it? I've never abandoned him then."  
  
"God, Jack!" She stared at him in dismay, dropping all pretense of ignorance. "Do you think I wanted to leave him in that orphanage? I would have left him with you if I could. If there had been just a few more months… But there was no time."  
  
"You stole my son," Jack said harshly.   
  
"Our son," Irina stressed, "was taken from me just as much as he was taken from you."  
  
"But you got him back."  
  
"And now so have you."  
  
"Now he's a sociopath. Thank you so much for that," he snapped.  
  
"What? You think he wasn't damaged before I got him back myself?" she shot back. "They took him from me less than a month after he was born. When I found him again he was the hardest nine-year-old you've ever seen. I didn't break him, Jack. I made him strong."  
  
"You made him a criminal. Our son is currently a prisoner of the United States government on charges of espionage, terrorism, and assassination."  
  
"And our daughter is currently missing without a trace. Could we save the recriminations for another time?"  
  
* * * * 


	10. ten

* * * *  
  
"Is he angry?"  
  
They had retreated from the rain into a small, unremarkable restaurant, the slightly more urbane environment dictating a more civilized tone to their conversation as well. They had hammered out a few more details concerning the logistics of their uneasy new partnership, but eventually the topic had turned once more to the boy.  
  
"Angry at you?" Jack lifted one shoulder at her minimal nod. "Frankly, I don't know. You're the one topic he refuses to discuss. Professionally, it's the one modicum of loyalty he appears to have ever shown anyone. Personally, he seems to have decided that it's none of my business how he feels. I think that's something to be dealt with between the two of you alone."  
  
"Somehow I doubt I'll be getting an opportunity to do that any time soon."  
  
Jack snorted. "And I have no doubt that you'd find a way to do it if you really wanted to. That is the question though, isn't it?" he asked. "You aren't sure that you really want to know what he thinks, do you? That's why you never told him before. That's why you let me do it. You're afraid of his reaction. You're afraid that he won't be quite as understanding as Sydney was."  
  
"Perhaps," she admitted objectively. "Sydney was able to forgive me because she still remembers an idealized mother who loved her. Stephen…" she faltered a little at the name. "He has no such comforting memories to influence him. He is pragmatic though. He might understand that I did the best I could in an impossible situation. But…" she shrugged.  
  
"But you don't have any idea what he really thinks."  
  
"He always has been adept at concealing his true opinions."  
  
"Even from you? The expert judge of his temperament?"  
  
She scowled momentarily at his sarcasm, then sighed. "Yes. Even from me. From the first day we brought him into the program he showed us only the face he thought we wanted to see. There were times as a child when he was still heartbreakingly easy to read, but with age and training, his natural skills have developed into very formidable defenses. Don't delude yourself into believing that you've managed to get close to him within a year." She gave him a melancholy smile. "Even after a dozen years, I couldn't do it."  
  
"He said you were like a mother to him."  
  
"I wasn't." The remorse that flickered across her face so quickly looked almost genuine enough to believe. "You should have realized before now how unreliable his perception of something like that would be. There were a dozen other children in that program. I gave him as much attention as I dared, but I could never…" her voice trailed off.  
  
"You could never let him think he was special."  
  
"No. But he was, Jack - the fastest, the brightest, the most ambitious. He earned his recognition, made sure we knew he was special. He demanded it."  
  
"You're proud of him."  
  
"Of course I am. And you should be too. He's every bit the agent Sydney is."  
  
"But not the person," he said quietly. "Sydney has a conscience, a heart. She has ideals and compassion…"  
  
"She's not perfect either. She has conspired to commit a murder. That isn't exactly the choice of an unequivocally moral person. And you aren't above it yourself, are you? Don't try to hold him to a different standard, Jack. He's no better and no worse than any other member of this family." She looked at him with a sudden intensity. "Don't give up on him yet. He's only twenty-three. He's not irredeemable… and maybe you can reach him after all - in a way that I never could."  
  
Jack was startled by the abrupt change in her manner. Irina was staring at him in an oddly appraising fashion and when she spoke again there was an unexpected softness in her voice.  
  
"Maybe I never did have a chance of reaching him after he was taken from me," she said. "The first thought that he has always connected with his mother is abandonment. Even when he had managed to half-convince himself that he wanted me to be a mother-figure to him, he couldn't bring himself to let me get close enough for that sort of relationship to develop. Now he knows the truth - that I'm the one who abandoned him for half of his life and that I've lied to him the other half - I don't expect that intimacy will be any more forthcoming than it was before."  
  
She paused, rubbing absently at a water-stain on her glass. Jack thought that she appeared to be trying to decide how to phrase her next comments. He couldn't help wondering whether it was a ploy or if she truly was as troubled as she seemed to be.  
  
"I don't think that he ever had much of a concept of his father," she continued slowly. "I don't think that he's ever held him - you - responsible for anything that has happened. To have all of this thrown at him now, while he's in your custody… I've made sure that he never saw you as the enemy - the opposition, of course - but never an enemy. If you really have never lied to him, if you can keep any promise you make to him… His father might just be the only person in the world he could learn to trust. Don't waste that opportunity."  
  
He stared at her in astonishment. She sounded so sincere, but he had been taken in before. What purpose would it serve, he wondered, if he believed that he could convince the boy to trust him? Was this just another ruse designed to achieve some as-yet unperceived objective? Did it seem plausible because he wanted to believe it? Did it even matter? He hated the way that he always felt the need to second-guess his own evaluation of any situation that involved Irina. He knew that he had already begun to think he was making progress with Sark. He didn't want to have to re-examine everything he believed up to this point.  
  
"I do want to see him again," Irina said softly. "Regardless of how he feels about me, I am his mother and just once I'd like to stand in the same room with him when he knows that. I want to be able to look at him and see my son."  
  
Jack found himself nodding in agreement. He knew exactly the sentiment she was feeling. It was the one that had prompted him to take that incriminating sheet of paper and press it against the glass all those months ago. He realized now what he had intended with that action. It hadn't been enough for him to see the boy and know who he was. He had wanted… he had needed the boy to look back at him with the same knowledge.   
  
They stared at one another across the table.  
  
"Someday," he said. "Maybe someday."  
  
He was rewarded with a wry, weary smile that looked familiar for far too many reasons.  
  
* * * * 


	11. eleven

* * * *  
  
Sark and Dixon had returned from their Kendall-authorized assignment several hours before Jack had gotten back from North Korea. He had missed their debriefing, but he intended to get a review of his own. As he watched Sark sleeping off the effects of the anesthesia he noticed a few more patches of white gauze than could be accounted for by the removal of the poison capsule. The blanket that was usually pulled up to the boy's ears lay midway down his back and Jack could see bruises that he suspected would darken even more before they began to fade. When Sark shifted restlessly Jack could also see the ugly swelling over his cheekbone and the split lip.  
  
"Thought you might be down here," Dixon said quietly when he entered the small observation room.  
  
"You don't seem to be much the worse for wear," Jack noted. "What happened out there?"  
  
Dixon shrugged. "Seems that Kendall's new golden boy isn't as popular as he'd like to believe. When we got to Trincomalee we discovered that Deccan Rajkot was under the impression that the LTTE's latest problems have a very specific cause - namely one notoriously treacherous young Irishman. Not everyone is buying the fiction of Sark's absence from the field last year. Rajkot had thought that he turned informant."  
  
"Had thought?"  
  
"Past tense. He doesn't think so any more," Dixon grinned. "I may not like working with Sark now any more than I did when he was playing SD-6, but I have to admit that kid does seem to have a silver tongue. Even while Rajkot's men were beating the shit out of him, he never stopped talking. Had me half-convinced that he was innocent by the end too, and I was on one of the missions we ran against the Tigers based on his intel."  
  
"So he persuaded them that someone else was to blame for their difficulties?"  
  
"He's still alive, isn't he? I almost believe he could talk his way out of just about anything."  
  
"He's still here, isn't he?" Jack said dryly.  
  
Dixon shrugged. "Theoretically."  
  
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Theoretically?"  
  
"He's only our prisoner in theory. He has already talked his way out of that cell half a dozen times in the last three months alone. Sooner or later he's going to figure out a way around that poison pellet, assuming he hasn't done so already. That boy is only here as long as he wants to be here. When he decides that it's no longer in his best interest to be in CIA custody, that'll be the last day we see him."  
  
Jack was intrigued by Dixon's analysis. "What makes you think that it's in his best interest to be here now?"  
  
"He's flipped on a lot of people in the past year. Rajkot can't be the only one who has started to wonder why certain organizations have had such abysmally bad luck recently and begun looking for the common element. He's using us for protection just as much as we're using him for information."  
  
"That's probably true," Jack agreed. "Doesn't look like we protected him too well this time though."  
  
"He's still alive, isn't he?" Dixon said again. "You know, it's interesting," he said after a moment. "Before things went south, Sark was asking some unusual questions of Rajkot, things not covered in our mission parameters. I was about ready to think he was trying to freelance right under our noses… until I realized where his questions were leading. You still have him searching for Sydney, don't you?"  
  
"What's so 'interesting' about that? Just because the official inquiry has ended doesn't mean I'm going to stop looking for her."  
  
"I know," Dixon said gently. "And I'm not surprised by that in the least. What I find unusual is that Sark is still helping you. I'm just curious about his motivation. What's in it for him?"  
  
"He knows that humoring me by promising to find Sydney is the best way to get out of that cell," Jack replied, but Dixon was already shaking his head.  
  
"Was the best way, maybe, but not anymore. At this point, Kendall doesn't need a recommendation from you before considering the use of Sark in the field. He's already taken with the idea. Even if you began recommending that we keep the boy locked up, Kendall would probably keep sending him out. You're not the one Sark needs to humor anymore. So the question becomes - why is he?"  
  
It was a question that Jack didn't have a good answer for. Dixon's assessment of the situation was accurate enough. Under the "public" circumstances, it was clearly in Sark's better interest to please Kendall rather than Jack. Even given the private circumstances, there was little to suggest that the boy would feel obligated to honestly continue his unofficial investigation into Sydney's disappearance when there was relatively little Jack could do now if he decided to stop. Though Jack knew that Sark had harbored a great deal of respect for Sydney as an agent, he sincerely doubted that there was any real fraternal sentiment there. If Sark wasn't continuing the search based on any personal attachment to Sydney or on the expectation that his relative illusion of freedom would be curtailed if he failed to uphold his end of the deal he'd struck with Jack, then what was inducing him?  
  
Jack could come up with a handful of credible incentives. Perhaps Sark believed that Jack wielded enough influence to have him permanently confined to his cell regardless of Kendall's intentions to the contrary. It was a valid concern despite Dixon's underestimation, but not particularly likely. Sark also knew that Jack valued his fieldwork for Kendall's assignments nearly as much as Kendall himself did.   
  
Then there was the possibility that Sark or his erstwhile employers still had a hidden agenda which involved Sydney's presence, if not her cooperation. A week ago Jack might have still considered this to be a reasonable option, but after meeting with Irina, he doubted both that she was behind Sydney's disappearance and that she had any ulterior motives for finding their daughter. He also doubted that Sark had had time in the past few years to locate any other potential employers to whom he would show that sort of loyalty. If Irina hadn't retained him in this particular endeavor, he wasn't working for anyone else.   
  
Which left two alternative suggestions that Jack wasn't certain how to evaluate. Either Sark was still engaged in an active search for Sydney to oblige Irina personally… or to oblige Jack himself. As he had told her in Pyongyang, he really didn't have any idea how the boy currently regarded his mother. Would he try to find Sydney in an attempt to prove his own value to Irina once again? Or was he trying to win Jack's approval? A thought nagged at the edges of his mind but refused to let Jack grasp it. He had to admit that he simply didn't know why Sark was still searching anymore.  
  
* * * *  
  
"I'm not doing this anymore."  
  
Jack stared down at the battered boy in surprise. Sark had pulled the blankets high on his shoulders once again so that all Jack could see was a mop of disheveled blond hair, a pair of steely blue eyes, and the purpling bruise on his cheek. Jack had to imagine the tight set of his jaw and stubborn line of his mouth, but he had no doubt about how the rest of the boy's face appeared. The sudden obstinacy startled him.  
  
"Have you seen the transcripts?" Sark asked, his voice slightly muffled but still clearly annoyed. "They debated," he said as Jack shook his head. "The bastards actually had to debate whether or not to come get me. They wouldn't have done that to one of their own. I know I'm expendable, but I don't like knowing I'm that expendable and I most definitely do not like having my fate so dependent on people who have no long-term interest in my well-being whatsoever. If they'd waited another few hours to extract me there wouldn't have been any point anyway. I could have dealt with Rajkot on my own if I'd had the time, but because of that damned pill I'd have been dead regardless of whether he decided to kill me if Kendall hadn't authorized a retrieval. I would prefer not to die at all, but if I must, I'd really prefer to be killed for something I'm actually responsible for than be inadvertently poisoned because some government bureaucrat still thinks I can't be trusted."  
  
He had lifted his head from the cot during the course of his low-toned yet intense tirade and his eyes flashed angrily. Jack could now see the shadow of another bruise along his jaw and a raw scrape across his neck that all too readily suggested a variety of unpleasant causes.  
  
"So I'm not doing this anymore," Sark repeated stubbornly as he leaned against the wall. "Not until you find a more acceptable means of reassuring yourselves."  
  
Jack searched for signs of anxiety beneath the fury, but was startled by what he saw instead. The anger ran deeply but under it was hurt, not fear. The boy was too infuriated to be afraid for his life, but something else about the situation was bothering him. The debate, he realized. "They wouldn't have done that to one of their own" was what Sark had said. What he had meant was - they wouldn't have debated if it had been Sydney. The nagging thought that had troubled Jack earlier abruptly crystallized.   
  
Sark believed that both Jack and Irina valued Sydney's life above his own. It was not an invalid assumption, Jack had to admit. Neither of them had been in a position to bond with him in those early formative years as they both had with Sydney. They had not heard his first words, seen his first steps. They had not nursed him through fevers, calmed him during thunderstorms, or sent him off to his first day of school. They had not been there for the million tiny things that bound them both so strongly to Sydney. There was a distance that would always be between them because of that lack which nothing would be able to bridge, Jack realized. And for the first time in his life, the boy could see exactly what he had missed.   
  
A sibling rivalry, albeit extremely one-sided, that had never before existed had suddenly flared to life. Sark had gone in an instant from being alone in the world to being part of an extraordinarily dysfunctional family whose members he already knew in entirely different capacities. His adjustment apparently hadn't been quite as effortless as Jack had once believed. It was no wonder, Jack mused, that he was reacting a little erratically - cool and rational in some instances, obstinate and immature in others. It couldn't be easy to realize how much his parents were willing to do for their daughter while knowing that neither of them was quite certain of how to deal with him now. Once again Jack was reminded of how nearly equal Sark saw himself with Sydney - how alike he had seen them even before knowing of their relationship. Coping with the reality of everyone else's view was undoubtedly frustrating.  
  
"Stephen," Jack said quietly and was strangely gratified to see the sharp crease between the boy's eyebrows ease somewhat. There was still an aggravated spark in his eyes, but some of the ferocity faded. Reaching out to touch that dark blond head was more difficult under the full glare of the fluorescents than it had been in the darkness, but Jack did it nonetheless. "Didn't they let you have a shower when you got back?" he asked as his fingers ran across the dried blood still in his hair.  
  
Sark blinked at him, the irritability in his expression replaced by confusion, which was in turn supplanted by a flash of momentary humor at the clumsy non sequitur. There was also an underlying recognition that Jack didn't know how to handle the sheer awkwardness any better than he did. The wrenchingly familiar sardonic grin reappeared.  
  
"Go away, athair," the boy said as he dropped back onto the cot. "I'm tired. Tell Kendall that you have to find another way."  
  
Jack nodded although Sark's eyes were already closed. He was beginning to understand why the boy chose the moments he did to use that word. It was a paradoxical attempt to unsettle Jack when he seemed to be getting too close, while at the same time ensuring that he didn't push him too far away. Sark wanted the familiarity but only on his own terms. It was a hard line to walk, Jack thought. But something he realized that he was willing to tolerate.  
  
* * * * 


	12. twelve

* * * *  
  
Jack studied the men around the table as Kendall briefed them on their latest assignment. Marshall was fidgeting nervously and Jack cast a quick glance at the seat across from him. Sark gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look as if to say, "I didn't do anything". Jack resisted a sigh. It was probably true. Just being in the same room with the boy was enough to give Marshall hives. As a gesture of goodwill, Sark flashed Marshall a bright reassuring grin that was anything but. The engineer sloshed his coffee in agitation and Jack gave the boy another warning glare. Sark's smile was utterly unrepentant as he made a quiet show of folding his hands carefully on the table and turning his attention dutifully toward Kendall. Jack resisted another sigh and for the moment he was thankful that he had not been responsible for raising this boy after all. He was beginning to suspect that one or the other of them would not have survived.  
  
He turned his focus to the man seated beside Marshall. Tippin was no more comfortable in this situation than Marshall was. Whereas Marshall's fear of Sark was tempered with curiosity though, Tippin's was mixed with anger. Recollecting Will's condition after being abducted and ransomed by Sark a couple of years ago, Jack could hardly blame him. Seeing Will was always a good reminder, he thought regretfully, of just what his son was capable of doing. It was encouraging to know how resilient the one-time reporter was however. He had adapted to a career as a CIA analyst rather quickly and in the past year had become a common fixture at many lower level meetings. Jack doubted the wisdom of having him at this particular briefing, but Kendall had thought that his input would be valuable. Tippin hadn't met Sark's eye throughout his presentation, a tactic that Marshall would have done well to emulate.  
  
Beside Sark sat Dixon, already a veteran of several previous missions with the boy. He had no fear, but harbored a healthy skepticism about Sark and appeared to be resigned to working with him once again. He had merely given Jack a knowing look as Kendall began to outline their mission and shaken his head in unenthusiastic acceptance. As he had predicted several weeks earlier, Sark had found a way around the poison capsule… although the alternative wasn't entirely to his liking either.  
  
"It's not really my style," Sark said, frowning critically at the box and its contents.  
  
"I tried to make it as tasteful as possible," Marshall explained hurriedly. "You know, Harrison Ford has one just like it. Well, not just like it because I'm pretty sure that his doesn't transmit and receive radio waves. It might, but… no, probably not." He took the box back out of Sark's hands. "I based this on the earrings that your… ahem, sorry… The earrings that Derevko, your former employer gave to Sydney, her daughter…" He paused briefly, his gaze darting nervously from Sark's slightly bored expression to Jack's equally impassive one. "Right, anyway… There are a few modifications of my own. This earring is an all-in-one combo of voice transmitter, receiver, and passive tracker. And I wouldn't try to remove it yourself without this handy device," he waved another small piece of electronic equipment at the boy. "Or you'll be doing a very messy Van Gogh impersonation and probably be deaf in that ear… er, the remains of that ear for the rest of your life."  
  
Sark scowled at him. "I thought we'd agreed to no C4 accessories?"  
  
"Um, no… you sort of asked for that, but it was kind of overruled. Don't get me wrong. I mean, you're still intimidating as hell, and believe me, annoying you is one of the last things I want to do. But he…" Marshall pointed over his shoulder at Kendall. "He can fire me, and frankly that's something that I'd rather not have to explain to my mother."  
  
"Marshall, would you just put the damn thing in his ear?" Kendall interrupted.  
  
"Sure, sure." The engineer fumbled with the box for a moment. "Just have to… Here, hold this for a minute while I…" He handed Sark a hypo-gun, much to the chagrin of several of the room's other occupants. "Relax," he told them, still tugging at the earring in the case. "It's not like it's loaded or anything. I just have to… Got it… Just have to put this in there, and then line it up." He had taken the gun back, loaded the C4 stud, and now stood with it aimed straight-armed at Sark's head. "I'm not really a professional at this or anything and I don't want to hurt you…"  
  
"I'll do it," Will volunteered cheerfully. "I don't mind."  
  
Sark mouth twisted into a smirk. "Still a bit resentful about Taipei, Mr. Tippin? How many times do I have to apologize for that unfortunate incident?"  
  
"Once would be a good start."  
  
"Then I do apologize for the inconvenience."  
  
"Inconvenience?" Will said indignantly, rising from his chair even as Jack moved to intervene. "You shot me! I was tortured!"  
  
"No need to take it so personally," Sark replied unperturbed. "I have nothing against you myself. If you'll recall, I never touched you, and I sincerely doubt that tranquilizer dart hurt at all."  
  
Jack was fascinated as well as appalled by the instinctive way that the boy seemed to distance himself from the torment Tippin had endured. Sark seemed to effortlessly shrug off his own responsibility by reasoning that it had not been his decision to abduct Will nor had the actual subsequent torture been his doing. This was the side of his son that disturbed Jack the most - this blithely amoral persona that simply couldn't see anything wrong with what he had done. It troubled Jack to see how easily the jaded operative could overshadow the charming young man and the lonely little boy that also lived behind those clear blue eyes.  
  
"You are not unique, Mr. Tippin," Sark continued. "Every man in this room has had similar disagreeable experiences - and most of us more than you. I suggest that you either get over it or get a new job."  
  
"That's enough!" Kendall said sharply. Jack discovered that he had clamped a hand on Tippin's shoulder to hold him in his seat. Across the table he noted that Dixon had subtly shifted into fighting readiness despite the fact that Sark hadn't twitched a muscle. "I don't care how big a hole you have to put in the side of his head, Marshall. Just do it."  
  
"Yessir, sir," Marshall stammered. "This might sting a little." The hand holding the gun shook unsteadily and Sark raised his own hand to stabilize it.  
  
"Don't worry, Mr. Flinkman. I'll survive this and I promise you will too."  
  
There was a soft pneumatic thump and the snap of the earring's pieces clicking together. The boy's expression never changed.  
  
"There now. That wasn't so bad, was it?"  
  
"No, it wasn't too…" Marshall's voice trailed off as he realized that Sark was being sarcastic.  
  
"Just remember," Kendall said to Sark as the rest of them rose to leave. "You step one toe out of line and they have authorization to shoot you now- no hearing, no trial. They don't need anything but reasonable cause."  
  
Sark gave him a disingenuous smile. "And here I thought they had always been authorized to shoot me," he said.  
  
Jack put a hand to his back and propelled the boy into the hallway before he could further annoy the director. "One of these days," he hissed at Sark. "Somebody really is going to shoot you out of sheer exasperation and I might just do it myself. That stupid stunt, baiting Tippin…" He regretted the words immediately as Sark choked on strangled laughter.  
  
"I do so enjoy being part of this family," Sark murmured in amusement. "Nothing says love like opening fire on your children. You and Irina really are very well matched."  
  
"And your remarkable sense of self-preservation seems to be fading," Jack said grimly. "You might want to consider revising your tactics."  
  
"Sorry. Point taken. I'll be sitting quietly in the lounge, not baiting anyone, until the mission is ready to depart."  
  
"You'll be sitting silently in my office not doing anything at all until we leave." He frowned at the boy, daring him to make just one more smart remark. Sark seemed to be considering his options before shrugging his capitulation. Jack wondered briefly how Irina had kept his insolent sense of humor in check. It occurred to him that Sark was more afraid of her than he was of him. Considering their current relative positions, Jack wasn't sure whether to be pleased or offended.  
  
* * * * 


	13. thirteen

* * * *  
  
"I can't believe that this is the most feasible approach your people were able to come up with," Sark muttered.  
  
"Shut up," Jack replied through clenched teeth and a fake smile as they drew near the receptionist's desk. "Godaften. Jeg hedder Frederick Brenner," he said to the woman as she looked up at them politely. "We're here to see Mr. Kronsberg. We have a two-thirty appointment." Marshall had hacked the Danish firm's intranet to insert their names into the corporate calendar and the woman smiled back at them brightly.  
  
"Yes, Mr. Brenner. If you'll just sign in here." She pointed to the appropriate line on the clipboard then turned her attention toward Sark. "And you...?"  
  
"My personal assistant," Jack said, hoping that the boy at least had the grace to not be smirking right now. He was admittedly relieved to see that Sark had managed to conjure up a suitably mild expression as he signed in as well. They accepted their visitors' passes and walked through the metal detectors. The guard inspected Jack's laptop and both of their cell phones before ushering them on to the elevator.  
  
"I still think this plan is needlessly complicated," Sark said when the doors had closed.  
  
"And how would you have done it differently?"  
  
"Through the garage level and up the service elevator."  
  
"Guards?"  
  
"Trank darts."  
  
"Elevator card?"  
  
"Stolen from one of the aforementioned guards."  
  
"And if an unconscious guard is discovered before you're finished?"  
  
Sark shrugged as he followed Jack off the elevator. "At least they wouldn't know who they're looking for. Unlike those of us on this mission who just stood still for three minutes at the front desk and posed for their security cameras."  
  
"And how would you have handled the rest of the internal security cameras?" Dixon's voice crackled over their earpieces. He was currently monitoring those very cameras from a surveillance post set up in the building next-door. "The hallway is clear for about ninety seconds," he added.  
  
"Short-range EMF disruptor," Sark replied.  
  
"And the electronic locks?" Jack asked, waving one of Marshall's skeleton cards at the boy before sliding it into the panel beside the laboratory's door.  
  
"Presuming that I didn't have Mr. Flinkman on my personal payroll, I suppose it could be done the old-fashioned way - descramblers."  
  
"That would take more than the minute and a half you'd have in this hall," Jack pointed out as they entered the lab.  
  
"Trank darts," Sark said again with another shrug.  
  
"You can't solve all your logistics problems by shooting people."  
  
"It's worked fairly well so far." He sat down at one of the terminals. "Bay three," he called to Jack after a few moments of tapping at the keyboard. "The prototypes should be in bin seventeen."  
  
Another of Marshall's keycards opened the bay's door and Jack quickly located the system components that they'd come to disable. Sark joined him and they began opening the casings of each of the devices.  
  
"You wouldn't have had time to sabotage all of these with a one-man mission," Jack said as they worked to remove and replace the essential chips.  
  
"True," Sark replied. "But I wouldn't be bothering to substitute defective chips. Simply stealing the originals could be done quickly enough."  
  
"Short-sighted," Jack shook his head. "This substitution will gain us a few extra days at the least. A few weeks if we're lucky."  
  
"Wouldn't be an issue. I shot a guard on the way in, remember? They would know someone had been here anyway."  
  
"Doubly short-sighted then."  
  
"Three days wouldn't matter one way or the other. My plan is faster, more efficient, and less risk to fewer people. From a purely economic point of view, it's the cheapest means to the highest yield."  
  
"You'd resell the chips."  
  
"Of course. And a one-man job doesn't require splitting the profits. Done."  
  
"Done."  
  
"Hold your position," Dixon stopped them. "The guard is sweeping your hallway right now... Okay, go."  
  
"For what you intend to accomplish," Jack said as they rode the elevator back to the lobby. "It's a reasonable plan. For what we intend to accomplish, however, it's a little inadequate."  
  
"You're entirely too accustomed to having a governmental budget at your disposal. When you're having to front operational costs on your own account, sometimes the short-term gains are preferable to the mid-term benefits."  
  
"Just out of curiosity," Dixon asked. "How much profit would you estimate that you could make on those chips?"  
  
"Five million apiece if I could sell them fast enough."  
  
"You are keeping an eye on him, aren't you, Jack?"  
  
"Both of them. We'll meet you at the rendezvous point in forty-five minutes."  
  
* * * *  
  
Jack and Sark reached the rendezvous location rather quickly. Dixon hadn't arrived yet and pick-up wasn't scheduled for another twenty-five minutes. Jack continuously scanned the shadows of the dim warehouse, far past second and even third thoughts about the prudence of the imminent unsanctioned assignation. Sark had sensed his unease and stood mutely beside him, hands jammed into his coat pockets, scanning with the same edgy intensity although Jack knew that he had no idea what he was looking for. There was a sudden, sharp intake of breath and Jack realized that the boy had discovered it after all.  
  
"That's not playing fair, athair," Sark said softly as Jack followed his line of sight.  
  
Irina Derevko stood at the edge of the shadows, waiting expressionlessly for a signal to either approach or depart.  
  
* * * * 


	14. fourteen

* * * *  
  
Sark turned to meet Jack's gaze. Jack could see a myriad of emotions flash through his eyes - surprise, anger, confusion, hesitation. None of these came as a shock to him. He doubted that the boy ever expected him to authorize such a meeting, much less arrange it. The anger could be explained as much by Sark's dislike of being unprepared as it might indicate his feelings on the subject of Irina in general. The confusion was perhaps a result of seeing his adversarial parents in collusion. And as Sark's hand rose automatically to his ear, Jack knew the hesitancy was caused by the knowledge that the radio transmitter had no off-switch.   
  
The earring was more of an annoyance than a serious deterrent, Jack thought. He suspected that it would take Sark slightly less than three seconds to slice it out - with or without a blade. The real deterrent, as far as the CIA was concerned, was the fact that Jack never allowed the boy out of his sight - or more preferably out of arms' reach. The earring was merely a token gesture to remind Sark who held his leash. This simple operation had been little more than a test of how much he could be trusted. It was ironic, Jack mused, that it was he and not the boy who had chosen to commit the breach.  
  
Silently, he took a device from his briefcase - a twin to the one Marshall had shown them at the briefing. Sark stared at it for a moment, his mouth drawn tightly and his forehead wrinkled in frowning contemplation. Then he nodded once and bent his head. Jack desensitized the trigger mechanism in the earring and nodded in return that the boy could remove it. Sark did so, clenching it almost involuntarily in his fist before dropping it into the small, soundproof container that Marshall had also provided.  
  
"You don't have to talk to her," Jack said quietly once the box was sealed.  
  
Sark snorted. "You went to an awful lot of trouble to make sure that I would."  
  
"That you could," Jack corrected.  
  
"Why? As much of a fight as you put up to keep Sydney away from her, I'd think you would be considerably more worried about any sort of influence she might have over me."  
  
"I am. But I also think that you're better able to assess her attempts at manipulation than Sydney was."  
  
"And if she's not trying to manipulate me?" Sark asked. "Aren't you the slightest bit bothered by the possibility that you're the one being played?"  
  
"Yes," he admitted again. "But as I have yet to discover any practical benefit to either of you in this particular method of emotional extortion, my concern is indeed rather slight."  
  
"So now that you've removed the threat of that charming little trinket," Sark nodded at the box. "What's to stop me now from walking over there... and continuing out the door?"  
  
Jack smiled humorlessly. "We all know that earring has no more been stopping you from vanishing than Sloane's radioactive wine did." He paused and gave the boy a hard look. "You are my son, but even my sentimentality has its limits. I have no illusions about what you are capable of and, like your mother, I would have no qualms about shooting you should I deem it necessary."  
  
"My life really was so much simpler when I was still an orphan." His tone was as flippant as usual, but Jack detected the note of truth beneath it.  
  
Sark continued to hesitate, not exactly asking for permission, but still apparently looking for some sort of reassurance. Despite the boy's outward bravado, Jack knew that he was apprehensive about speaking with Irina. He had been her protégé for years, her favorite employee, and her most trusted right-hand man. There had been a degree of respect and even a certain measure of closeness between them. Now Sark was entirely unsure where he stood with her. Jack couldn't fault him for his anxiety. He didn't doubt that the boy had spent countless hours in his cell wondering what, if anything, of their former relationship had been real. But solitary speculation couldn't actually answer that question.  
  
"You have ten minutes, fifteen at the most, before Dixon arrives. Do you want it?"  
  
The boy looked down briefly, closed his eyes for an instant, and nodded. When he looked up again there was a new resolve in his expression. With one last, unreadable look at Jack he squared his shoulders and crossed to where Irina stood waiting. Jack watched as Sark stopped several feet short of easy conversational distance; arms crossed, hands tucked beneath his elbows in an unmistakably hostile stance. Although their voices didn't carry across the vast warehouse floor, Jack was not at a disadvantage. He unobtrusively slipped the second earpiece into his right ear. The microbug that he had planted on Sark's coat hours earlier transmitted their words clearly.  
  
"Stephen..."  
  
"Don't," Sark stopped her. "You never called me that. Not even as a child. No reason to start now."  
  
Jack watched Irina's calculating expression as she studied the boy. "You let your father call you that," she speculated.  
  
Sark shrugged. "He doesn't do it on purpose. He doesn't know why he does it."  
  
"But you don't stop him, do you? And you don't know why either."  
  
Her canny observation was met with a stony silence. Jack noted absently that here was another similar expression Marshall would have been able to recognize had he been present.   
  
"I suppose you would like an explanation," she said at last, when it became clear that his relationship with Jack was no more a topic for discussion with her than their relationship was with his father.  
  
"No. I think I've managed to put most of the important pieces together on my own already." He gave her a sardonic smile. "Apparently I come by my analytical skills quite naturally. It seems that I only have one question left... Did you have a choice?"  
  
"About leaving you at St. Michael's? No, that wasn't my choice. You were taken..."  
  
"No," he interrupted. "Did you have a choice about whether to bring me into the Halcyon program?"  
  
There was a lengthy pause. Jack supposed that she was trying to decide what the boy wanted to hear, which version of the truth would appease him... if there even was any answer that would satisfy him.  
  
"No," Irina said at last. "I have to admit that part of me was selfishly glad that I would have you so close once again... but no, if I had been allowed a choice, I would not have brought you into Halcyon. I never wanted this life for you... for either of my children. There are so many other things that I would have wished for you, but my wishes were irrelevant. Your genetic profile, your inherited traits, your undeniable potential... all of these ensured your recruitment regardless of how vehemently I could have protested."  
  
"Could have," Sark repeated. "But you didn't protest at all, did you?"  
  
"I am sorry."  
  
"That would be much more convincing if both of us were clear on what exactly you believe you're apologizing for."  
  
"I'm sorry that you aren't happy," she said simply.   
  
Sark stared at her nonplused for an instant before recovering and throwing up a quick rejoinder. "What makes you think I'm not happy?"  
  
She gave him a gentle, knowing smile. "You are not happy," she said again with conviction. "And I know much of that is my fault."  
  
"Like handing me over to the CIA?" he asked. "Because I have to agree, my displeasure with this particular situation is entirely your fault. Was that really necessary? You knew where Sloane was. You could have just as easily told Sydney how to find him as you told her how to find me. What grand scheme did you fail to fill me in on?"  
  
"So you do have more than one question," she said lightly. "I have never failed to tell you anything you truly needed to know."  
  
"I suppose the subject of who I really am is a relatively insignificant matter then? A minor irrelevant detail?"  
  
"Would it have done you any good to know it sooner?" Irina asked. "Surviving Halcyon required a certain mindset. Could you have maintained that knowing what you know now? It wasn't my choice to bring you into that program, but if you were going to be forced to become a covert agent then I would have done anything to ensure that not only would you survive, you would be the best operative they produced."  
  
"Anything to produce the best," he repeated derisively. "Letting a nine-year-old believe that he was and always would be completely alone certainly does foster a particular sort of bloody-minded dedication to one's work. Someone who never had any emotional attachments in his life would be consummately indifferent to such weaknesses in others. The ultimate professional."  
  
"It got you through. You survived."  
  
"At what cost?" he snapped, his accent blurring in his anger. "Allison is dead," he said. "And thanks to your flawless training, I almost don't care. Occupational hazard. Survival of the fittest. Part of me actually wants to blame her for not being good enough. And you're the one who raised me to think like this."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"No, you're not. You're standing there thinking, 'better Allison than Sydney'."  
  
"You're right."  
  
They stood staring at one another - Sark's anger slowly ebbing away as Irina refused to fuel it.  
  
"What do you want me to have done differently?" she asked when he seemed composed once again. "If I had told you when you were a child you would have expected things that I could not provide and you would have died for those erroneous beliefs. I couldn't get you out and I couldn't protect you myself. The only option I had left was to make sure that you could defend yourself and I am not sorry for that. I'm proud of you, what you've become."  
  
"A cold-blooded monster?"  
  
"You are not a monster," she said, taking an unintentional step toward him. She caught herself and stopped as his already rigid posture stiffened even more. "Despite all your training to the contrary, you are still capable of caring. And regardless of how old you think you feel, you are still young enough to learn so much more."   
  
The boy twitched involuntarily toward Jack before he could stop himself. "You set me up just so Daddy could complete my education?" he said in disbelief.  
  
Irina shook her head. "That was not my intention... but I'm not disappointed with the results. You know now that you are not and never will be completely alone. You are beginning to understand that people do care about you very deeply. And you are finally starting to form some of those dangerous, necessary emotional attachments of your own." She smiled faintly at his darkening scowl. "He's your father, Stephen. Although he may be in no better position to be a parent to you than I was, let him try. Making those attachments now is what is going to keep you alive, not detachment. Your world has changed. Change with it."  
  
"I don't know how," he said quietly.  
  
Her smile broadened fondly at that. "That has never stopped you from doing anything before in your life. You're going to be fine."  
  
"But..."  
  
"You are going to be fine," she repeated firmly. "I know it's a lot to absorb, but there is one more thing. Something I've wanted to tell you every time I saw you for the past fourteen years," she said, her features softening once again. "I love you. If you take none of the rest of this with you, if you choose to believe nothing else - believe that."  
  
There was a long, long silence.   
  
It was broken by the beeping of the timer on Jack's watch. Sark turned toward him and now Jack could see the raw emotions on his face. He looked as lost and overwhelmed as he had the first night that he'd known who he truly was. Jack wanted to give them just a little more time, but didn't dare. He crossed quickly to them, taking the soundproof box out of his pocket as he walked. Irina lingered, knowing as he did that she shouldn't risk it, but unwilling to leave just yet.   
  
Sark fumbled with the small explosive earring as if his fingers had gone numb. Unaccustomed to wearing such an accessory, Jack half-expected that he would end up stabbing another hole through his ear. What he did not expect was for Irina to gently take it from the boy and reach up to fasten it herself. Sark's eyes closed at her touch. When her hand moved tentatively to his cheek, he tilted his head ever so slightly to lean into it and opened his eyes once again. In them Jack could see the little boy who had never before been touched by the hand of his mother. There was at the same time a desperate longing and a sense of long-denied peace in the boy's expression.  
  
"Mathair," he breathed. It was scarcely loud enough to be heard. The microphone would have picked up only a sigh.  
  
Irina smiled softly, knowing that she could make no verbal response. Instead, she brushed her lips lightly across his other cheek. She reached out to touch Jack's arm as she turned to go and mouthed, thank you. With a final glance at the boy, she disappeared back into the shadows. Father and son stared after her.  
  
Neither of them spoke again until Dixon arrived a few minutes later. The boy seemed understandably subdued on the airplane and Jack deemed it wisest to leave him alone with his thoughts for the moment. In truth, he had more than a little contemplation of his own to do. As he passed Sark's seat on his way to the cockpit, however, the boy stopped him.  
  
"Here. I almost forgot."  
  
Jack reflexively caught the small, dark object that fell from his hand. It was the microbug. The boy gave him a tired grin.  
  
"When are you going to realize that I am as good as I say I am?"  
  
* * * * 


	15. fifteen

* * * *  
  
Two weeks later Jack entered his office only to discover that it was already occupied.  
  
"They do still deign to lock your cell these days, don't they?" he asked, setting his briefcase on the desk.  
  
"Dixon and I are being sent to Melbourne in a couple of hours to meet with a former colleague of mine," Sark said in explanation. "I talked Marshall out of tagging me until just before we're ready to leave." He fingered his ear absently and Jack could see that the hole from their last mission had healed entirely. "On the subject of that cell though… Why haven't I been offered the 'illusion of freedom' house on Puget Sound? Surely I've proven myself to be at least as cooperative as Irina was?"  
  
"She turned herself in. You, as I recall, were arrested."  
  
"Is that what that was?"  
  
Jack ignored the interruption as he sat down. "We had a greater level of confidence in her continued cooperation at the time."  
  
"Bit shortsighted," the boy said.  
  
"Precisely." Jack gave him a stern frown, hearing the mocking echo of his own words in the comment. "Why are you asking about something you already know the answer to?"  
  
"Masochism," he shrugged. "Regardless of the official reasons for the proposition, the truth is that you offered her residence outside of that frigid cell because she was once your wife… Actually, I believe it's a source of some amusement to her that she still is."  
  
Jack studied him across the desk. "Even knowing that you're my son would do nothing to persuade the director to authorize moving you to an off-site facility. In all probability, it would merely make things more difficult."  
  
"Of course. And trust me, being widely known as the offspring of Jack Bristow and Irina Derevko is the last thing in the world that I want. That little bit of genetic information has made Sydney such a popular girl in certain circles. I'd be happy to avoid all that if I can. I just think it's interesting."  
  
As usual, the tone was almost bored, but Jack saw something incongruous in his expression. He wasn't certain whether it was prolonged exposure that was making Sark easier for him to read or if the boy was beginning to drop more shields in his presence. Either way, he could tell that Sark wasn't quite as accepting of his anonymity as he was professing. He wondered once again what it must have been like for him to grow up believing that he was entirely alone only to discover he did have a family… that was unable or unwilling to acknowledge him in public. Jack could see the conflict in him - torn between the satisfaction of knowing something simply for the sake of knowing it and a childish desire to be recognized despite the potential problems that could arise from it.   
  
"Have you completed your analysis?" Sark asked suddenly, a faint grin accompanying his abrupt question.  
  
They had not had a chance to discuss anything in private after their return from Denmark, so Jack rapidly assumed that this was where the new topic was headed. "You mean have I decided which parts of that drama in Copenhagen were real and how much was solely for my benefit?"   
  
The broadened grin and a slight nod confirmed his assumption. It was a subject that had kept Jack's mind occupied many hours in the past weeks. Sark had known about the bug; Irina undoubtedly expected it as well. Clearly much of what had passed between the two of them could have been sheer theatrics. In Jack's opinion, however, that depended a great deal on whether or not Irina had told the boy who he was at some point before delivering him into CIA custody. Although he was painfully aware that a fictitious life could be maintained for long periods of time under even the most intimate of circumstances, he was inclined to believe that Sark had truly been startled by the revelation of the mapped DNA and that very few of the impressions he had gained from the boy over the past several months had been feigned.  
  
"Objectively speaking," he began. "I do believe that whether or not she wanted you in Halcyon, she did use the situation to her own advantage for all its worth. I believe that she has her own reasons for handing you over to us that had nothing to do with locating Sloane in Mexico City." He noted the shadow of a scowl that passed over Sark's face. "I believe that you don't have any more of an idea what those reasons are than we do. And I believe that she's not done with either of us yet."  
  
The last comment brought the faint smirk back. "So you do realize that she's smarter than both of us?"  
  
"I wouldn't say that."  
  
"Denial doesn't make it any less true," Sark said. The smirk faded once again, replaced by a more sober expression. "And subjectively speaking…?"  
  
This was what the whole morning's visit had been leading up to, Jack thought. If he could believe that the content of the confrontation in Denmark had been unrehearsed, then what Sark wanted was an honest evaluation of the more personal aspects of Irina's disclosures. He wasn't sure whether the boy was trusting his analysis as a seasoned operative or as Irina's erstwhile husband, but he was almost surprised to see that either way, Sark seemed prepared to trust him in this assessment.  
  
"In the past few years I've had to do a great deal of reevaluation concerning Irina Derevko," he said slowly. "I've gradually come to the conclusion that regardless of the relationship that she and I have or don't have, her relationship with Sydney has always been something completely separate. She is not by any stretch of the imagination a typical mother and she has extraordinarily complicated ways of showing her affection, but I do believe that in her own convoluted way, she does love Sydney. By that standard and by what I saw in Copenhagen… as well as a few other conversations we've had concerning you, I would be inclined to believe that she has placed you and Sydney in the same category. You can make of that what you will," he added with a self-deprecating shrug. "I also believed that she loved me for ten years so I might not be the best judge of her emotional range."  
  
Sark's flickering grin flared at that. "I think that you may be underestimating certain aspects of the situation," he said. "She is not as indifferent to you as you seem determined to believe."  
  
It occurred to Jack that this was not a conversational tangent he particularly wanted to explore with his son, regardless of the insights that Sark's more recent decade spent with Irina might reveal. Besides, there were more pressing matters to discuss.  
  
"While we're on the subject of my Copenhagen analysis," he said coolly. "Let's talk about Allison Doren."  
  
"Let's not." The sudden, steely look in Sark's eyes could have just as easily been inherited from either parent.  
  
"I think we need to. You know what happened?"  
  
"I read the report. Your internal firewalls need some work," he added as if sensing Jack's unasked question.  
  
"Is this going to be a problem? I didn't realize until Denmark that the two of you were more than colleagues. I don't think that allowing you to continue the search for Sydney will be such a good idea… if you are going to take this personally."  
  
The boy's humorless smile was a little unsettling. "If I haven't taken anything else personally, why would I this? Allison was trying to kill her. I can hardly blame Sydney for defending herself. I've tried it a few times myself and consider myself fortunate to have only scars for my efforts. I'm well aware of the hazards in this profession, and I learned a long time ago not to take any of it personally."  
  
A knocking at the door interrupted any response Jack might have made.  
  
"Oh good. I thought you might be here," Marshall said. "I hate to butt into this… family meeting," his voice dropped conspiratorially. "But Kendall's riding me about tagging him," he nodded at Sark. "And I'm afraid that he is being really insistent."  
  
"Fine," Sark said, leaning forward. "Just do it and be done with it."  
  
"Um, he was also kind of insistent that you return to the detention cell on the third floor until the mission is ready to go."  
  
"That isn't for another two hours at the earliest," Sark protested. "Just do it now and I'll stay here until then."   
  
Jack tried to conceal his surprise at the boy's counteroffer. The very nature of the tag meant that there could be no more private conversation between them. He wondered at Sark's willingness to sit silently with him, or at best to discuss only impersonal topics, for that length of time. The cloudy expression on his face indicated something other than his distaste for the idea of sitting alone in the cell for that same period, but Jack couldn't fathom what.  
  
"It's cold down there," the boy said with a dismissive shrug. "And I don't think those plastic chairs are very ergonomic." Jack didn't buy that either.  
  
"Let him stay, Marshall."  
  
"Yes sir. Okay, but…" Marshall's quick glance back into the corridor was all the indication Jack needed to realize, however, that this was not going to be an option.  
  
"You track him down yet?" Kendall asked, his broad frame filling the doorway. His frown deepened when he spotted Sark. "How many times do we have to go over this? You are not allowed to roam around this place like you actually work here. Detention cell, third floor, now."  
  
Sark had shifted from a slightly troubled expression to the much more familiar sardonic one as he rose and followed Marshall out the door, shaking his head in bored amusement as the man all but scrambled to get out of his way. The wry expression wavered only when he cast a look back at Jack. There was frustration there and irritation… and a hint of regret. There had been something else that the boy wanted to discuss. Now it would have to wait for his return and potentially weeks before they got another opportunity.  
  
If Jack had known what the next forty-eight hours would bring, he would have pressed for a few more minutes.  
  
* * * *  
  
Their third mistake, Jack thought as he read the mission transcript one more time, was sending the boy to Australia in the southern spring.  
  
DIXON: ETA to rendezvous - twelve minutes. I hope your old buddy Rutherford is on time.   
  
SARK: I scarcely expect that he'd consider us 'buddies'. Do you surf?  
  
DIXON: Do I…? No. And what did you do? Double-cross him too?  
  
SARK: Something like that. Did you know that it's only an hour's drive from here to Geelong? Best surfing on the southern coast.  
  
DIXON: This is not a fieldtrip. How badly is this guy going to be pissed at you?  
  
SARK: Not enough for you to worry about. Lovely weather. It must be twenty degrees warmer here than in that cell.  
  
DIXON: Enjoy it while you can then.   
  
SARK: I intend to.  
  
* *   
  
Their second mistake, Jack thought as he recalled Kendall's tirade, was thinking that he would be controllable without the threat of certain death hanging over his head and residing under his skin.  
  
"How the hell could this happen?" the director had stormed at Dixon. "He was three feet away from you!"  
  
"I don't know," Dixon had said. "There were absolutely no prior indications. The meet went off exactly as planned. Not a hitch. We got in, we got the info, we got out. We were at the extraction point and then…" He had shrugged. "I just don't know. I looked at the plane. Fifty yards away. I looked back… nothing."  
  
"He was wearing a damned tracker! How could you lose him that quickly?"  
  
"It was an earring," Dixon had protested. "It couldn't have taken him two heartbeats to rip it out. I knew that was a bad idea from the start."   
  
"Why didn't you anticipate this?" Kendall had turned his ire on Jack then.   
  
"I believe that I did send you my analysis," Jack had said. "Four months ago. It stated that I thought it was highly probable Sark would attempt to escape on the first mission we sent him on without the toxin capsule." He had shrugged. "It seems I was off by one."  
  
* *  
  
Their first mistake, of course, Jack thought as he picked up Tippin's report, was believing even for an instant that Sark hadn't had his own agenda from the very beginning.  
  
"Did you know that there was a contract out on Sark for most of last year?" Tippin had asked when he'd brought Jack the report.   
  
Jack had nodded. Deccan Rajkot was not the only person who had found Sark to be uncommonly bad for business one way or another. That Jacques Gauzin, head of one of Europe's strongest post-Alliance covert intelligence factions, had placed a sizable sum on the boy's head wasn't exactly surprising.   
  
"Did you know the exact date that contract was first publicized?" Tippin had said then. "Three days before Derevko sent Sydney to Stockholm to pick up Sark. Do you know when it was cancelled? A month ago. After Gauzin was killed in a professional hit of his own."  
  
* *  
  
Now Jack sat alone at his desk with the transcript, the report, and the earring that was still coated in his son's dried blood. He had his suspicions that the timing of the contract and its expiration were merely convenient coincidences, but he couldn't be sure. Although he knew that he ought to be reevaluating the prior year in its entirety, he couldn't. Try as he might to analyze even the current situation objectively, his mind was inevitably drawn back to the morning before the mission. He realized now what he had seen but refused to acknowledge at the time.  
  
The boy had been trying to say goodbye.  
  
* * * * 


	16. sixteen

* * * *  
  
"What's wrong?" Irina demanded. Her first words at their rendezvous were sharp and insistent. "You've missed two meets."  
  
"How was I supposed to learn about them?" Jack snapped back at her. Without Sark to intercept and interpret Irina's more subtle ciphers, he had only known about this intended meeting in Warsaw because she had sent a discretely coded email to him directly.   
  
"Why wouldn't..." She altered her question mid-asking as she realized what Jack's own question had meant. "Where is he?"  
  
"Funny. I was going to ask you the same thing."  
  
Irina's expression became oddly blank for an instant, so quickly that he barely caught it. Then she smiled lightly. "You've lost him."  
  
"He hasn't contacted you either." It was a statement, not a question.   
  
"How long has he been gone?"  
  
"Three months." He could see she was considering whether or not to tell him something by the way that her eyes narrowed fractionally.  
  
"The communiqué on the lead in Jakarta last month," she said slowly. "That wasn't from you after all, was it?"  
  
"Jakarta? No. He's still looking for Sydney?"  
  
"Apparently. I'd thought the message was from you. He's a very good emulator of your style."   
  
"He's disturbingly good at a lot of things."  
  
"So how did he elude you?" There was no mistaking the sense of pride in her tone.  
  
"Not me," Jack frowned, chagrined at the defensiveness he could hear in his own voice. "He ditched Dixon in Melbourne. We're still not entirely sure how."  
  
"It's nice there this time of year," she observed almost absently.  
  
"Warmest place he's been in a long time."  
  
They both stood in silence for a moment, contemplating their cold-natured son.  
  
"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the implications that he's still looking for Sydney without you at his shoulder," Irina said eventually.  
  
"Doren?" he asked. "You think he'll hold it against her?"  
  
"Honestly, I don't know. He has always been pragmatic about this business, but..." She shrugged.  
  
"How could you let him get attached to someone like her?" He'd meant to sound sarcastic, but Irina took his words at face value.  
  
"I wouldn't have if I'd known," she said grimly. "I allowed him considerably more autonomy in the last few years, but I would have put a stop to that if I'd realized what he was doing. The last thing he ever needed was to become involved with someone else in this business."  
  
Jack unconsciously nodded his agreement. The unease that he had felt rising for the past several months was not alleviated by Irina's sharing of his concern. Allison's death could have provoked a desire for revenge that no newly forged fraternal bond could preclude. The loss of the one fragile connection that he'd chosen for his own could have just as easily triggered a complete emotional shutdown. Or it could have caused something else entirely unpredictable.   
  
"Do we re-prioritize?" he asked.  
  
"I don't think so," she said after a moment's thought. "Current evidence suggests that he's still working with us. It remains in all of our best interests to continue our cooperation." She paused and tilted her head. "I do suggest, however, that we make a point of attempting to reach her before he does. No sense in allowing him the opportunity to give in to temptation. How did he seem when you last saw him?" she asked then.  
  
"Tense," he said. "Disturbed. Allison was the last thing we talked about."  
  
"Not exactly the ideal mind-frame to send him out on assignment in."  
  
"It was something we needed to discuss. I'd anticipated having more time to defuse him, but we were interrupted."  
  
"He seemed willing to talk to you about it?" There was the barest hint of wistfulness in her voice.  
  
"Not precisely willing," he admitted. "But he wasn't leaping out of the chair either."  
  
"It's easier than you expected, isn't it?" She smiled at his uncomprehending look. "Being a father to him. Your head keeps telling you that it's a lost cause, but your heart keeps making overtures."  
  
"For all the good it seems to have done." The bitterness in his own tone surprised him. Irina smiled at that too.  
  
"You always knew that this was a temporary arrangement. Just because the Agency has lost him doesn't mean that you have."  
  
"Then where is he?" Jack asked evenly, his voice firmly under conscious control once again.  
  
"I have no idea. He could have gone anywhere. Someplace warm as an indulgence, someplace cold to mislead us."  
  
"Track his accounts. You know all of them, don't you?"  
  
Irina shook her head. "I know most. He's bound to have at least one that I'm not aware of and that's the one he'll be using."  
  
"Then how do we find him?" For a fleeting moment he saw the absurdity of it all. Two parents trying to find a pair of lost children... and all the world to search. Irina must have caught a glimpse of that herself as she looked at him.  
  
"Do you remember when we took Sydney to Disneyland?" she asked.   
  
"She was five," he nodded. "Too small to ride much of anything but so adamant about going that we finally gave in and went anyway."  
  
"And somehow just after lunch we got separated. Even after all we've been through, I still think that may have been one of the most terrifying experiences of my life."  
  
"And it didn't seem to faze Sydney one bit." He couldn't help smiling at the memory. "I remember we found her at the base of the Rocket Jets begging them to let her on because it was the tallest ride in the park and she was sure she'd be able to see us from the top."  
  
Irina echoed his fond smile. "We have very resourceful children," she said. "When he's ready, he'll find us. Until then, we focus on Sydney. Once we determine that she's safe, then we can... deal with him."  
  
"I suspect that his current absence may be a commentary on all our previous... dealing with him."  
  
"He'll come around, Jack. He needs us."  
  
"Do you think he know that?" he asked dryly.  
  
"On some level he does. Whose approval do you think he's really been trying to earn all these years? He may not like it and he may not want to admit it, but he's been trying for two decades to prove himself worthy of being claimed. He is not going to walk away from the opportunity that he's been waiting for all this time. You know he can't."   
  
* * * *  
  
To all outside observers, Jack seemed to bury himself in his work. If anyone suspected that he was still searching for his daughter, no one remarked upon it, and certainly no one was aware of the unconventional triangular association that spanned the globe for that sole purpose.  
  
After several months, he and Irina met once again - this time in Rome - to compile their latest findings. There were nebulous hints and obscure tips, but the trail remained as insubstantial as ever. They also compared missives received and discovered a handful of contacts that neither could account for - communiqués flawless in their mimicked styles and patently untraceable. They were a subtle assurance of Sark's continued well-being, if of little else.  
  
The situation remained invariable until the telephone call.  
  
Jack reached unerringly for the ringing cell phone on the nightstand, going instantly from deep sleep to lucidity in a matter of seconds. This phone had never rung before and now its urgency was unequivocal. Its number was known only to one other.  
  
The connection roared with white noise and a faint voice murmured across the hissing line. He strained to hear it as if willpower alone could make it more distinct.  
  
"...nd her... ong kon... ith her but..."  
  
The voice faded out completely for several heart-stopping seconds then continued its fractured speech.  
  
"...ydney... foun... warehouse on the... hear... daft gi... tually shot... can you........"  
  
Jack found himself listening fiercely to silence, then to a dial tone.  
  
The voice had been Sark's, unmistakably even amidst the static. Part of his mind wondered how the boy had obtained the number - whether through his mother or if he'd found the coded message that Jack had set for him months ago. The rest of him struggled to interpret the splintered monologue. He tried not to jump to conclusions too quickly, too desperately. But he felt instinctively what Sark's call had meant.  
  
Sydney.  
  
Somewhere, somehow - he'd found Sydney.  
  
* * * * 


	17. seventeen

* * * *  
  
Three hours later Jack was on a plane to Hong Kong. It had been the only useful information that had he had been able to glean from the broken transmission. He had risked a direct contact with Irina before leaving and verified only that Sark had not been in touch with her - either to obtain the number or to relay any additional intelligence. Eight hours into the flight, the phone rang for a second time. Jack thumbed the answer key even as he rose, heading for the lavatory several rows back.  
  
"Can you hear me this time?"  
  
"Where have you been?" Jack replied as he locked the door. "Where's Sydney?"  
  
"I'll take that as a yes then. I've been… It's complicated. And Sydney… Well, that's also complicated. I've seen her though. She's definitely still alive and currently, I believe, on her own."  
  
"What do you mean, 'on her own'?"   
  
"This would be much simpler if you'd let me start at the beginning," Sark said. Taking Jack's silence for acquiescence, he continued. "I've been tracking several members of an obscure organization for the past couple of months. The reasons are extensive and since I don't know how long I'll be able to maintain this line, the part you need to know is that I'd begun to suspect that Sydney was with them. In what capacity, however, I couldn't quite determine. I trailed them to Hong Kong two… no, possibly three days ago. And then things got… complicated."  
  
Jack wondered at the rueful tone and hoped that the boy hadn't done anything foolish. He was also slightly puzzled by Sark's uncertain time frame, but he didn't interrupt.  
  
"I'm afraid that I must admit to some minor miscalculation on my part," Sark continued apologetically. "It seems that not everyone in my current employ is capable of meeting the standards I had expected of them. I believe that somehow this organization was inadvertently alerted to our surveillance. For all their ostensible precautions though, it appears that they were not as prepared in the event of a breach as perhaps they should have been. Their response to being compromised was rather… chaotic."  
  
Despite the sanitized vocabulary, Jack had a fairly clear picture of how gruesome the actual circumstances probably were. While Sark was at times capable of remarkable subtlety, Jack knew that he was not reluctant to engage in comprehensive annihilation when he reasoned that it was necessary. He suspected that the boy had reasoned it was necessary.  
  
"In any event," Sark went on. "Sydney seems to have taken advantage of the situation to make her own break with them. I ran into her shortly thereafter."  
  
"How is she?"   
  
"I'm not entirely sure how to answer that," Sark said with obvious reluctance. "It was a rather brief encounter and I don't think that she fully comprehended my intentions."  
  
"What happened?"   
  
There was a conspicuous pause.  
  
"She shot me."  
  
"She…? Are you all right?"   
  
"I'll live," he said dismissively enough to ease Jack's mind.   
  
"What did you do to her?"  
  
"Why do you automatically assume that I did something?" the boy protested. "I didn't get a chance. I'm not even completely certain that she recognized me before she shot. It seemed more reflexive than deliberate. She just looked at me and fired - all one move. I'm a little unclear on precisely what happened just after that. I lost her, called you, and then apparently spent an unaccountably large amount of time not doing anything at all… I think."  
  
"You're still in Hong Kong?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And Sydney?"  
  
"I don't know. Probably. I have people looking, but no word yet."  
  
"Have you contacted your mother?"  
  
"My resources are a little thin at the moment."  
  
"Don't go anywhere. I'll be there in seven hours."  
  
* * * *  
  
Jack had been a little surprised that the boy had seemed so willing to give up his present location. In truth, Sark had almost sounded relieved to hear that he was already halfway to Hong Kong. It was mid-afternoon when he followed the directions to a quiet back alley gate and was met by a solemn-faced woman. She looked up at him and he had the distinct impression of being appraised. He guessed that she was near his own age, but couldn't be certain. Though her frame seemed slight, Jack suspected that she would be a formidable opponent; she would not be guarding the threshold otherwise.   
  
"Who are you?" she asked at last.  
  
"My name is Jack."  
  
The woman shook her head. "I did not ask your name," she said. "Who are you?" This time he heard the emphasis. It was a test, he realized, in more ways than one. The woman watched him carefully, preparing to shut the door if his next answer was not satisfactory either.  
  
"Athair." And so it begins, he thought. The first thread.  
  
"Welcome then, Jack. I am called Meigui."  
  
Her demeanor softened and she gave him a gracious smile as she unlocked the gate. She didn't speak again as she led him through a courtyard and up a narrow flight of stairs. Jack could see few other signs of security beyond the cameras that covered every possible angle of access. The key defense here was not in personnel intended to fend off potential attacks, but in early warning to enable a timely evacuation. Interesting strategy, he thought. And ideal for someone who trusted no one to protect him but himself.  
  
Meigui unlatched the door and ushered Jack in first. The furnishings were rather more utilitarian than he had expected. A few straight-backed chairs sat around a table to his right, in front of a partition that he surmised hid a small kitchen. Two more comfortable-looking chairs, a divan, and another low table were to his left. He assumed that the security monitors were set up elsewhere. There was no sign of Sark. A corridor split the rest of the floor in half and the woman led Jack to the last room on the right.  
  
Sark's injuries were more serious than he'd led Jack to believe over the phone. The fair-haired boy with his fairer skin looked almost ghostly against the dark sheets. He lay on his side and Jack could see the neat white squares of gauze and tape that were plastered on his left shoulder, front and back and unaligned. The wound was high enough that it didn't appear threatening to any major organs, but judging by Sark's pallor there had been enormous blood loss. His sleep seemed a little too deep to be entirely natural.  
  
"We argued a great deal about that," Meigui said softly. "He wished to remain awake until you arrived, but I am the doctor. He needed to rest. If I had not sedated him, he would have done himself real harm with his continued activities."  
  
He needed to be in a hospital, not this private fortress, Jack thought immediately. He just as quickly acknowledged, however, that in the stark difference between Sark's world and his own it had never really been an option. He wondered how the boy had managed to remain coherent enough for the second call, never mind the first. Sheer stubbornness probably. It seemed to be one of their family's inheritable characteristics.   
  
"He said that his jye-jye did this."  
  
The second thread, Jack mused as he nodded. Another tie to the Bristows. He wondered how long it was going to take before this information began to filter out. Especially with the call he was about to make.  
  
Meigui brought him a steady stream of tea and information as he sat vigil at the boy's bedside. As Sark continued to sleep, Jack occupied himself by stepping in to fill the void, organizing the reports as they came in and directing new avenues of pursuit. It occurred to him that Sark must have anticipated this and left instructions in the event of his incapacitation. The men accepted the father's command as they would have the son's. When the phone rang again, Jack moved across the small room to keep his voice from disturbing the boy.  
  
"The Agency seems to have some sort of lead," Irina said without preamble. "I've just learned that they've recalled Michael Vaughn and sent him to Hong Kong on a military transport. They know Sydney is there."  
  
"If Vaughn is the only person they're sending, it's possible that they know exactly where she is. How long ago did they dispatch him?"  
  
"I'm not certain. Between twelve and eighteen hours ago is the nearest I could determine. How is he doing?" she asked then.  
  
"Still unconscious. His color is improving, but his strength still doesn't seem to be returning."  
  
"Should I come?" she asked.   
  
"It's not a life-threatening injury," Jack assured her just as he had when he'd called her shortly after his arrival. "I'm not sure how loyal his employees are though," he added this time. "Meigui seems genuinely fond of him, but I don't know how much protection she would be if he comes to need it after I've gone."  
  
"I understand."  
  
After she hung up, Jack made another call.  
  
"Where the hell have you been, Jack?" Kendall demanded. "We've been trying to reach you all day. Your daughter's been found! Sydney turned up in a Hong Kong safe-house late last night, local time. We recalled Michael Vaughn to go bring her in when we couldn't find you this morning."  
  
"How is she?"  
  
"Based on the superficial examination they did at the safe-house, she appears to be in good health. We'll know more when they get back."  
  
"Where is she now?"  
  
"They're already in the air. She'll be in L.A. in twelve hours. Jack…" Kendall's voice became more somber. "She doesn't remember."  
  
"Doesn't remember what?"  
  
"Anything at all about the last two years. When she got to the safe-house she thought it was the day after she disappeared. Doesn't have a damned idea how she got to Hong Kong or where she's been all this time."  
  
"I'll be there as soon as I can."  
  
"Where are you now?"  
  
"It's complicated," he said before hanging up.  
  
The irony was not lost on him as he realized that he could have seen Sydney hours ago if he had gone through proper channels with a feigned lead instead of taking over Sark's operation with its thugs and thieves. It was only now that he realized as well how easy that decision had been at the time.  
  
He looked in on Sark once more before taking his leave of Meigui.  
  
"His mother will be here soon. Until she arrives, I'm holding you personally responsible for his safety." It occurred to him that Sark was probably going to be less than thrilled at the damage he and Irina were doing to his reputation. Criminal masterminds were generally not known for having their parents rush to their aid very often, he thought wryly.  
  
"I will protect him as if he were my own son," Meigui promised him.  
  
"He's my son. You'll protect him better."  
  
* * * * 


	18. eighteen

* * * *  
  
The flight back to Los Angeles was five hours longer than the flight out had been, including a brief layover in Shanghai. Jack willed himself to sleep for as much of it as he could. It wasn't that difficult. His body was exhausted and his mind was strangely at ease. Two years of searching had finally produced results. Sydney was on her way home. Even the contemplation of what trauma might have caused her memory block wasn't enough to dampen his relief and joy at the thought of being able to see his daughter again in a few hours.  
  
He did have a twinge of guilt at not feeling more remorse over leaving Sark. He was too tired, however, to do more than note dimly that Kendall would probably happily court-martial him if he knew that Jack had deliberately reunited Irina and her favorite lieutenant. His last semi-conscious thought before drifting off somewhere over the Pacific was that scarred and damaged though they might be, at least for the moment both of his children were safe.  
  
* * * *  
  
He paused, taking a few moments to observe Sydney through the two-way mirror before entering the room where she was pacing restlessly. She seemed thinner than he remembered, but not much. Her paleness reminded him briefly of the ashen-faced boy he'd left behind nearly a day ago, as did the dark hollows beneath her eyes.  
  
She'd had nearly twenty-four hours to begin processing her situation. Shock and confusion were already being replaced by frustration and impatience. Resilience, he thought. Pragmatism. Stubbornness. He wondered briefly if Irina saw the same characteristics in their offspring that he did or if her view encompassed different aspects of them.  
  
"Dad!" Sydney's expression when she saw him at the door was one of relief and eagerness... but not two years' worth.  
  
He resisted the urge to cling to her just a little longer when she hugged him, not wanting to overwhelm her with enthusiasm that her abbreviated memory could not justify reciprocating. He was certain that she would get enough of that from her friends and other colleagues.  
  
"Welcome home, Sydney."  
  
"When are they letting me out of here?" she asked. There was nothing unexpected about her impatient tone. At this close range, however, Jack could see the anxiety that she was trying to suppress. She had begun to accept that this was not a dream or an elaborate hoax, but the inability of anyone to pin down precisely what had happened understandably troubled her.  
  
"We can leave right now." He smiled as her face brightened. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions. And that you haven't been getting a lot of answers," he added at her wry look. "I hope you don't mind... One of the stipulations of your release from observation is that you'll stay with me - for a little while at least."  
  
Sydney shrugged with feigned indifference. "It's not like I have anywhere else to go. My apartment is gone, isn't it?"  
  
It was a rhetorical question and his heart fell as her expression darkened. He didn't want to remind her of Francie or Allison, but he supposed that she didn't need his help to remember. In her mind, it was still so fresh.  
  
"I didn't see any point in holding on to it," he said quietly. "I didn't expect that you would want to go back there anyway."  
  
"Did they ever find...? Nobody would tell me anything."  
  
"No." The knot in his chest tightened. He could see that his answer brought no easing of her pain. "Sark didn't know what Doren had done with her body."  
  
"And you believe him?"  
  
"He never lied about anything else. I don't expect he lied about that either."  
  
"I can't believe he's loose again," she shook her head in disgust. "Can't the CIA hang on to anybody?"  
  
Another rhetorical question. He knew that the abrupt shift in mood and tone was an attempt to distance herself from thoughts of her dead friend. He let the subject go for now. They would deal with it in a more private setting later - when she was ready. "Is there anything you have to take with you?"  
  
"Just these." Her face softened as she retrieved a violently colorful bouquet of flowers. "Marshall brought them by a little while ago. He was so absolutely tongue-tied that he couldn't get a single sentence out coherently." She grinned suddenly at the memory, grasping at the one bright moment in her bewildering day. "It's good to know that some things haven't changed."  
  
There wasn't much conversation of a personal nature on the drive home. Small talk centered around the ever-evolving cityscape - new gas stations and mini-malls raised, old restaurants and movie theaters razed. The faint tension that Sydney had radiated throughout the ride didn't ease as they entered Jack's neighborhood. She had been there so seldom before her disappearance that it probably felt just as unfamiliar to her as the rest of her off-kilter world did.  
  
"Is your house clean?" she asked once they were inside. Knowing that she wasn't critiquing the neglectful layer of dust in his living room, he nodded. "Has there been any word about Mom while I was... gone?"  
  
He had expected the question and his face was impassive as he nodded again. "We've been in contact a time or two. She has been just as concerned about you as I was."  
  
"You've been working together," his quick-witted daughter surmised.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Didn't seem to do much good," she said. "I had to 'find' myself... didn't I?" Doubt seeped into her expression.  
  
"I'm not so sure."  
  
"Something happened, didn't it? There's a specific reason why I woke up last night in Hong Kong. Isn't there?" Her desperate need for reassurance tore at him.  
  
He and Irina had discussed how much to tell her, how much she needed to know immediately. They had agreed that further muddying of the familial waters was something that could wait. The bitter issues of Francie's murder and the death of Allison at Sydney's hand were problems that could keep a team of good therapists occupied for decades. It was clear that asking Sydney to accept Sark as a brother would simply be too much at this point. Still, the revelation would have to come before their paths had any chance of crossing again. Jack and Irina had also agreed that allowing their children to continue facing one another in potentially lethal conflicts was unacceptable.  
  
"We believe that an independent operative may have been responsible for the events that led to your reappearance," he said carefully. "He had apparently been tracking you for several weeks and his investigation may have been the catalyst."  
  
"Independent operative? Not CIA?" she asked as he shook his head. "Yours? Mom's?"  
  
Jack almost smiled at that. Both, he thought. And neither. He shook his head again instead. "Not exactly."  
  
"Who?" Her tone was wary and he suspected that she already had a hunch.  
  
"Sark."  
  
"He's not what I'd call independent, Dad. He's always been working for Mom."  
  
"He's been on his own ever since he escaped CIA custody six months ago. And yes, I'm as certain about that as I can be," he added to forestall the question he could see forming on her lips.  
  
"Why would he do that? Trying to get back in good with Mom?"  
  
This time Jack couldn't keep the corner of his mouth from twitching upward ironically. "Perhaps. I believe it may also have been a matter of honor. While he was in our custody, I had been using him to search for you. I think that he intended to make a point by finding you himself."  
  
"What sort of point?" she asked, curious in spite of her skepticism.  
  
"That he isn't entirely what other people have made of him." His gaze was direct, making sure she met his eyes. "Sark didn't have to keep looking for you after his escape. He could have gone straight back to Irina and fallen in with whatever schemes she had going. He didn't. He could have used what he'd learned about various CIA operations to advance his own prospects. He didn't. As far as either your mother or I can determine, he's spent the past six months on little else but searching for you - to prove that he is capable of more than merely destroying things at the command of others. He's put something back together."  
  
"You actually almost admire him, don't you?" she said in astonishment.  
  
"He brought you back to us. That covers a lot of sins in my book."  
  
"He's a terrorist. He's been responsible for more deaths than I can count."  
  
"As have I," Jack quietly reminded her. "None of us in this business have clean hands."  
  
"What kind of reverse Stockholm syndrome did he pull on you while he was here? I can't believe you're actually defending him."  
  
"I'm not saying that he's innocent. Not by any means. He's made a lot of bad decisions with his eyes wide open... but I don't believe that this life as a whole is something that he ever chose for himself."  
  
"So you think that a year and a half in a CIA detention block has convinced him of the error of his ways and now he's trying to make amends? That's ridiculous."  
  
Despite her angry words, however, Jack could see that the seed had been planted. If she was not yet ready to pardon Sark, she was at least beginning to consider the possibility that his motives were even more complicated than she'd once believed. He could tell that she was also searching for the deception that she knew was mingled with the partial truth of his answers and half-expected her to call him on it. He was relieved when she looked away first.  
  
"Nobody at the Agency knows about any of this, do they?" she asked finally. "About you and Mom, about Sark being in Hong Kong?"  
  
"No."  
  
There was another long pause as she stared unseeing at the bookshelves that lined the walls. Then she sighed wearily.  
  
"I'm going to take a long hot bath," she said. "If that's okay? And then I'm going to bed. Between the flight and the tests and the questions and... everything, I'm exhausted."  
  
"Of course."  
  
Several hours later, once he was certain that she was asleep, he took out the phone that technically did not exist.  
  
"Is she really all right?"  
  
"She seems well. A little bewildered, a lot frustrated - but very strong. There were some trace chemicals in her bloodstream that the lab is trying to retro-engineer into a recognizable compound, but no word yet on results. The doctors seem to think that with regression therapy they'll be able to work through the memory blocks eventually. We won't know until then what the real damage is, but whatever has happened to her, it doesn't seem to have broken her. Stephen?"  
  
"Awake. Annoyed. Irritable." She sounded slightly amused. "I don't think that he can decide whether to be more perturbed at not being able to hand us Sydney personally, at missing you, or at waking up to find me here."  
  
"I don't imagine that he much enjoys being an invalid either."  
  
"No," she laughed, startling him with the sound. "He really doesn't."  
  
"Have you found any other leads on this mystery organization he's been tracking?"  
  
"Not yet. The fire at the warehouse has finally been put out, but it has been difficult to get in and there doesn't seem to be much left to pick through anyway. I've already set my own people on retracing the past few weeks. Maybe they'll be able to turn up something useful that Stephen's associates have missed, but I'm not optimistic. Despite their botched surveillance yesterday, his people aren't entirely inept. The local CIA cell has been active," she noted. "But our paths aren't crossing. They don't have any idea what they're looking for, do they?"  
  
"Probably not."  
  
"And your absence? Has that raised any questions?"  
  
"Nothing that I haven't been able to cover so far. If the Hong Kong team turns up any evidence that I was in the city in the past forty-eight hours though, I may have a bit of explaining to do."  
  
"I don't think there will be anything for them to find. Not even if they knew where to look."  
  
He wasn't certain whether the statement was intended to be a warning or a reassurance. The point, he knew, was that Sark and Irina were no longer in Hong Kong, and he realized that he wasn't going to analyze it any further.  
  
* * * * 


	19. nineteen

* * * *  
  
"You know we can't let her back in the field, Jack. Not like this," Kendall said. "We just don't know enough about what happened to her yet and what we do know doesn't seem to be very encouraging."  
  
"I'm well aware of that," Jack replied, making little effort to mask his irritation at being accosted in the hallway.  
  
"Then maybe you could enlighten your daughter, because I've run out of ways to explain it to her and she still keeps asking me when she can get off desk duty. I don't know. The doctors don't know. There's no way we're going to clear her for fieldwork until we can figure out exactly where she's been and who's been messing with her head for the past two years. If she could make some sort of breakthrough we might be able to give an estimate, but if the investigation and her therapy sessions continue at their present pace..." Kendall shrugged in exasperation. "It could be years, if ever. Look, Jack, I know this is difficult for her," he continued in a lower tone. "I know it's difficult for you. She's just going to have to be patient. We all are."  
  
"You could always allocate more resources to the investigation." It was a discussion they'd had many times before and Jack wasn't surprised to see Kendall's face crease into a pained frown once again.  
  
"If we had more to go on," Kendall said, repeating his habitual response to Jack's equally habitual suggestion. "But we don't."  
  
* * * *  
  
It had been three months since Sydney had returned. She spent her mornings in regression therapy, chipping away at the formidable shields of her memory and trying to decipher the fragmentary glimpses of lost days. She spent her afternoons catching up on current affairs, sitting in on mission debriefings, and proving her still sharp skills on the firing range and dojo mats. And she spent her evenings curled up in an armchair in the corner of Jack's living room reading and rereading comforting classics.  
  
It grieved Jack to see how withdrawn she had become, though he understood why she did it. Trying to lead a normal life in their line of work was impossible. Part of him wished that she had learned this lesson long ago, before it ever had a chance to hurt her so deeply. Mostly however, he wished that she had never had to learn it at all. He wished that she'd been able to have a life where lies weren't the only way to protect those she loved and truth didn't mean death, where friendships weren't liabilities or weaknesses to be exploited. He wanted to help her but realized that she was already emulating the only coping mechanism he knew.  
  
So he watched her throw herself into her reports and analyses and physical training with a fierce single-minded intensity. He watched her smile at co-workers, at Dixon and Tippin, and turn down their invitations to coffee or dinner with a wistful shake of her head. And he watched her night after night draw her feet up into the overstuffed chair and wrap herself around an old familiar novel, tucking the ever-errant strand of hair behind her ear in a gesture that made his heart ache.  
  
"Where did you get this book?" she asked him one evening. He glanced up from his own reading to look at the volume in question - a thick dog-eared paperback. "It has an odd bookmark."  
  
He couldn't see what the bookmark was until she abruptly threw it at him. It soared gracefully across the room and landed lightly on the book in his lap. He picked it up - a minor engineering marvel crafted in thick stationery paper - and imitating an action he'd observed many months ago, he made another small fold. Sydney's burst of laughter was as delightful as it was unexpected as she watched the little paper airplane wheel over her head and return to Jack.  
  
"Where did you get that?" she asked again, this time referring to the plane.  
  
"That book..." he replied. "Tom Jones?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
He turned the small plane over in his hands, studying the carefully creased lines and soft-edged tears that ought to have been made by scissors but weren't. "Sark," he said. "That was one of the books he requested while we detained him."  
  
"And the airplane?"  
  
"I suspect that he was simply extraordinarily bored."  
  
"Why do you have them here?"  
  
"After his escape we went through everything left in the cell. It was a long-shot. We never did find any evidence of outside communications. That book must have gotten mixed up with some of my other paperwork." It was a specious explanation, but he could think of none better. Honestly, he wasn't sure why he had brought the novel home. He glanced up to see that Sydney was studying the book as thoughtfully as he'd been looking at the plane.  
  
"Dixon said that you spent a lot of time with him that last year or so that he was in custody," she said without looking up. "Did he ever explain... why Francie...?"  
  
"No, he didn't." Using the plane to mark his own page, Jack set his book down. "But your mother and I... discussed it." Sydney looked up at him sharply and he could see the shine of unshed tears in her eyes. "That had not been part of her plan. She said that it was Sloane's decision to keep tabs on you after the fall of the Alliance and to use Doren as a possible means of infiltrating the Agency."  
  
"Do you believe her?" she asked softly.  
  
"I don't know. Sloane makes an easy scapegoat, but it is plausible."  
  
"And Sark? He had to have been involved somehow. He and... Doren came out of the same junior-psycho spy program, didn't they?"  
  
"Yes. Your mother said that he was her handler on this assignment, but that he was ambivalent about it at best. He definitely wasn't happy about the level of risk to Doren in such a situation."  
  
"Why would he care?" she asked, then grimaced at Jack's silence. "You're kidding, right? You think that little blond assassin might have had 'feelings' for her?"  
  
"It's possible."  
  
She shook her head disbelievingly but stopped as another thought apparently occurred to her. "Does he know that I'm the one who killed her? Could that be why he kept looking for me after he escaped? An alternative explanation to your 'making a point' theory?"  
  
"Possibly," he admitted. "But I'm inclined to believe him when he said that he didn't blame you. I suspect that Sloane is much higher on his list."  
  
"You're inclined to believe an awful lot about him," she frowned and looked down at the book still in her hands. "He specifically asked for this one?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Why? Another point to make?"  
  
"I don't know," he lied. "Leave it on my desk. I'll take it back to the office tomorrow."  
  
"Why bother?" She settled back into her chair still frowning pensively. "There's nothing else in it and I doubt anybody there wants it. It's been a long time since I've read this one. Maybe I'll find your point for you."  
  
* * * *  
  
"What other books did he ask for?"  
  
Jack looked up from his menu, momentarily puzzled by Sydney's question. It had become their habit to eat out at least once a week, neither of them being overly fond of cooking. A small family-run Szechwan restaurant had quickly become one of their favorite places. The owner and his wife had just as quickly warmed to the subdued father and daughter who began frequenting their establishment on a fairly regular basis.  
  
"Why do you bother looking at that?" Sydney asked with an almost indulgent smile as she took the menu from him. "You order the same thing every time. They don't even ask you anymore. And I meant Sark - what other books did he request specifically?"  
  
"You're still looking for other points?"  
  
"After reading 'Tom Jones' I thought that there might be some other hints about his mind-frame in the rest of his selections." Her tone was almost careless, but considering the topic, Jack couldn't help wondering at her interest.  
  
"What did you get from the Fielding book?"  
  
"Not much," she admitted. "Assuming it was Tom that he identified with, maybe he was feeling a little misused. Nearly everything that Tom did, regardless of his motivation, turned out badly for him. His actions were always being misinterpreted and the people who were supposed to protect him, to believe in him didn't. It all turned out well in the end, of course," she said with a shrug. "But it was a rough life along the way. If someone were analyzing Sark's requests, they might think he was trying to indicate that he felt he was being misunderstood."  
  
"That's one interpretation," Jack said. "It could also indicate that he was just amusing himself by trying to play mind-games with us. One of the first books he asked for was Dostoevsky, 'Crime and Punishment'. General consensus was that the boy was attempting to be funny." He permitted himself a wry smile as Sydney rolled her eyes. "He asked for Tolkien's trilogy and plowed through it in about three days. Marshall is the one who noticed that he'd requested it the week that movie opened. Not much point to be made in that selection except maybe irritability at his lack of liberty."  
  
Jack paused as their soup was delivered, resuming only after the waitress had gone.  
  
"He asked for an Umberto Eco book once - a new release, I can't recall the title. The point of that one was perhaps counterproductive. He shouldn't have known about the novel considering how limited his access to outside information was supposed to have been at the time. This was before Kendall had started allowing him out on assignments and presumably his purpose in requesting it was to annoy us, make us wonder how he knew it had been published."  
  
"Did you give it to him?" Sydney asked as she picked at the noodles in her bowl.  
  
"No. It hadn't been translated into English yet and getting an Italian copy was deemed too much effort on behalf of a federal prisoner no matter how cooperative he was being."  
  
"And telling the arrogant bastard "no" is a lot more fun."   
  
"Kendall wouldn't engage in petty one-upmanship over something so trivial," he said dryly. "I'm sure it was a very difficult book to obtain."  
  
"Right," she agreed in the same tone. But Jack nearly didn't hear her.  
  
His attention was caught by the woman at the back of the restaurant. She stood half-hidden by the ornamental screen that shielded the kitchen from the dining area. When she was certain that she'd been seen, she vanished behind it. Jack returned his gaze to Sydney and nodded absently at her comments on the tea as he pondered what Irina's presence meant. With a deliberately inattentive gesture he moved his cup slightly as Sydney began to pour.  
  
"Oh! Dad, I'm so sorry!"  
  
"Not your fault," he assured her as he dabbed at the cuff of his shirt.  
  
"If you run a little water over it quickly the stain shouldn't have time to set." She fluttered one hand toward the restrooms off the hallway in the back. He rose obediently, still wiping at the sleeve, and headed in the direction she indicated.  
  
"That was a very blatant trick," Irina said when he rounded the corner.  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
She gave him a mildly reproving look. "I would have thought that you'd be a little more understanding about this... now that you know how it feels."  
  
"You went twenty years without seeing her before."  
  
"But I always knew where she was. I just needed to see her for myself this time." She risked a glance through the lattice and an amused smile played across her lips as they watched Sydney discreetly picking shrimp out of Jack's soup and adding them to her own. "May I talk to her?"  
  
Jack frowned. A stern "absolutely not" and a more sympathetic "why not" vied for precedence in his brain. She had never asked for his permission before any of her previous contacts with Sydney and he knew that if she wished, she could undoubtedly still manage to arrange a private meeting with her daughter without his prior knowledge. Her approach and her query puzzled him.  
  
"I needed to speak with you as well," Irina said, her smile broadening as his frown deepened. She knew precisely how much it disturbed him that she still found him so easy to read. Her expression dimmed slightly as she continued. "Have you seen Stephen recently?"  
  
"You've lost him?" he echoed her words from Warsaw.  
  
"I wasn't trying to keep him prisoner," she said wryly. "I assume that he hasn't been in contact then?"  
  
"How long has he been gone?"  
  
"I haven't heard from... or of him in a little over two months."  
  
There were two options that Jack could think of off-hand. "He's either dropping out completely or he's restructuring." He looked down at Irina and knew they both realized the only choice that the boy could make. "He couldn't quit this even if he wanted to."  
  
"No." It was nearly a sigh. "I think he's grown accustomed to the autonomy though."  
  
"Will you let him go?"  
  
Her smile was faint once again. "It's funny, but somehow I don't seem to have the leverage over him that I once did. He understands what we are now..."  
  
"That you'll use him if you can and shoot him if he crosses you."  
  
"And that if he stays out of my way, I'll do everything in my power to protect him otherwise."  
  
They stood staring at one another in silence as a waiter pushed suddenly through the swinging door beside them.  
  
"May I talk to her?" she asked again.  
  
He nodded in resignation and she followed him back to the table.  
  
* * * * 


	20. twenty

* * * *  
  
Sydney stifled her startled cry of recognition almost before it began and stared wide-eyed as Jack drew Irina a chair from a nearby table to add to their own. Both women gave Jack expectant, slightly hesitant looks and he wearily nodded his permission as Irina hugged her daughter.  
  
"Mom, what are you doing here?"  
  
Jack felt a twinge that he reluctantly identified as resentment at the warm expression on Sydney's face as her mother sat down beside her. Her capacity for forgiveness -or optimism- never ceased to amaze him.  
  
"We've spent so long searching for you. I had to see you for myself." She paused to thank the waitress who brought them a third cup of tea. "And I have a proposal."  
  
Jack stiffened immediately and scowled at the semi-apologetic and knowing smile Irina gave him.  
  
"I know that the Agency hasn't had much success in discovering what happened to you," she continued, turning back to Sydney. "I wanted to make another collaborative offer. It seemed to work well before."  
  
"Circumstances were different before," Jack said.  
  
"Not so different," she replied coolly. "In fact, I believe that the... resources at our disposal are almost exactly the same. Only the goal now is slightly altered."  
  
It was true, Jack grudgingly admitted to himself. Substituting Sydney for Sark in this new proposed triangle made relatively little change in both the skills and the limitations of the alliance. He found it difficult, however, to equate his current desire to find out what had happened to Sydney with his earlier need to simply have her home safely. The latter was worth far more risk than the former, he thought. But his certainty wavered as he looked at her. Sydney needed to know what had happened to her. She needed to be actively doing something about it, more than just dredging through foggy memories a sliver at a time. For the first time in months he could see a spark of hope in her eyes.  
  
Irina placed a small card on the table. "Contact me when you've made a decision." She brushed her hand across Sydney's hair as she rose to leave and Sydney grasped at her fingers.  
  
"Before you go," she asked, a curious look on her face. "Who is Stephen?"  
  
For a moment, Jack and Irina both resisted the compulsion to glance at one another, staring instead at their daughter and her hardening expression.  
  
"I can read lips, you know," she chided them. "And I've heard Dad on the phone. I guess the question isn't really who is Stephen, is it? It's why are neither of you calling him Sark anymore?"  
  
There was no need to exchange glances then. Irina sat back down, her gaze as compassionate as Jack's was impassive.  
  
"Stephen is my son," she said at last. "Our son."  
  
"That arrogant British bastard is not my brother," Sydney denied flatly.  
  
Irina smiled softly. "Arrogant I'll give you, but he's not British."  
  
"And he's only a bastard in the colloquial sense," Jack added unexpectedly, earning him a startled but approving look from Irina. Sydney merely gaped at him before snapping.  
  
"Of course," she hissed at them sarcastically, still ever-mindful of the patrons and wait staff around them. "Because technically you two are still married. Which means that technically Sark is a Bristow. Which means that technically this family is the most screwed up bunch of dysfunctional lunatics on the planet. I swear I wish my amnesia covered all of this too. How long have you known?" she demanded, glaring at Jack.  
  
"A little over two years," he admitted. "How long have you suspected?"  
  
"You know there's always been speculation at both SD-6 and the Agency that he was Irina Derevko's son, so the suspicion has always been there. Then I thought it was weird how defensive of him you've been ever since I got back, trying to make sure that I didn't hate him or blame him for anything that's happened." If she caught Irina's quick glance at Jack, she gave no indication. "I've read all the files that the CIA compiled on Sark while he was in custody, so I know his name and when he was born and I can do the math. When I was reading that book it was clear that Tom's problems all began the day he was born - when his mother passed him off as a foundling to protect her own reputation. That point wasn't for anyone but you, was it, Dad? I've heard you on the phone when you've thought I was asleep - asking about Stephen and talking about me with exactly the same amount of concern in your voice. When were you going to tell me?"  
  
"When I thought you were ready," he said.  
  
"And when was that going to be? Before or after one of us shot the other?"  
  
"Preferably before it happens again."  
  
"You shot him in Hong Kong," Irina said at her blank look. "He's fine now, though."  
  
"That's so reassuring. How do you know I didn't do it in self-defense?"  
  
"Stephen would never harm you."  
  
"Why not? Because he adores his big sister so much?"  
  
Irina's expression chilled as she held Sydney's gaze firmly. "Because he knows that hurting you is the one thing I could never forgive him for."  
  
"And if he doesn't care about your forgiveness?"  
  
"He cares."  
  
"How can you be so sure?"  
  
"Because I know him. He may be a little uncertain of precisely how he fits into this family, but he knows that he's part of it and that he needs it."  
  
"He's uncertain?" Sydney repeated incredulously. "Mom, the word you're looking for isn't 'uncertain'. It's 'unstable'. And that's hardly a wonder after you've been screwing with his head for twenty years and you," she scowled at her father. "You've probably been confusing the hell out him trying to bond with him these past couple of years. And if I got all of that conversation correctly, neither of you has any idea where he is or what he's up to right now. How could you let this happen? How could you do this to us?"  
  
Jack wasn't entirely sure which of them their daughter was speaking to... or who she was including in her "us". Did she mean how could Irina have abandoned Sydney and Jack only to add this new unforeseen complication to their lives now? Did she mean how could Jack and Irina have knowingly driven their children into their current roles? It disturbed him to realize that he couldn't tell where her sympathies lay anymore. Perhaps the problem was that Sydney didn't know either.  
  
She glared at them both, anger and tears making her eyes bright. When she saw that neither of them had any answers for her, she stood and gave them each a long, searching look before heading toward the door. Jack rose quickly to follow her.  
  
"No, Dad," she stopped him. He could see that she was still angry, but it was not a reckless fury. She had it under control though it was tempered with pain and disappointment. "I just... I need to walk for a while. I'll get a cab home."  
  
"No." He shook his head gently as he handed her his keys. "Keep the car. I'll take the cab."  
  
A brief, grateful expression flickered across her face at his gesture. She tucked the keys into her pocket and he watched her walk out the door. When he returned to the table, Irina was already gone. He picked up the card that Sydney had left behind and waited, almost unconscious of the passage of time as their uneaten meal was packed into carry-out boxes by the attentive, unobtrusive waitress.  
  
* * * * 


	21. twentyone

* * * *  
  
It was late when Jack heard the faint clatter of keys on the kitchen countertop and his daughter moving quietly through the house. She stood hesitantly at the edge of the living room before finally crossing to sit in her customary chair. She eyed Jack speculatively but said nothing for some time.  
  
"I hate him," she said at last, without any particular passion. It was an admission in a tired tone, reminiscent of another weary observation Jack had heard nearly two years ago. "But I understand him."  
  
She'd always been good at adapting, he thought. He watched her pick at the piping on the chair's armrest and could see a hint of remorse in her eyes. It was a small indication that she almost regretted her hasty exit from the restaurant. She still had questions and knew that her mother would probably have had more answers than Jack did.  
  
"Mom really did a number on him, didn't she?" Sydney said. "Raising him… letting him be raised the way he was, to turn out the way he is." Her tone wasn't quite sympathetic, but it was softer than he would have expected. Then again, her own childhood had been less than ideal. "How did you find out?"   
  
"Marshall discovered it in the Stuttgart database and brought it to me."  
  
"And you confronted Sark about it," she continued for him when he didn't go on. "Why did you do that?"  
  
Jack doubted she'd be able to understand his primary motivation. Parenthood was outside her experience, still. "I wanted to know if Irina had told him," he said instead.  
  
Sydney smiled faintly at his hedged answer. "You know she didn't. If he'd known earlier he would have been even cockier around us. He would have loved knowing something like that when we didn't and he'd have been even more of a smug bastard - so to speak - than he was."  
  
"Probably."  
  
"So I'm guessing this isn't exactly common knowledge at the Agency?"  
  
"No."  
  
She laughed then and he was surprised to hear genuine amusement in it. "Wouldn't Kendall have a stroke if he found out? He'd probably fire both of us just on general principles. It really would be the last straw for the amazing Bristow spy family." She chuckled again at the thought of the director's apoplectic reaction.   
  
Then she shook her head, shifting focus, and became more serious. "What do you see when you look at him?" There was a curious note to her voice, as if she wasn't quite certain that she wanted to know but still felt compelled to ask. "You spent over a year with him after you learned who he was. Did it make him seem… different?"  
  
"No," he said eventually. "And yes." As he studied her earnest expression he decided to try being as honest as he could. "When he first appeared on our radar, almost four years ago, analysts in both the CIA and SD-6 started trying to dissect him. For him to be so young and yet as high in The Man's organization as he was, it was suspected that he'd been trained for his position from a relatively early age. While it was clear that his technical education had been extensive, it was equally clear that his ethical instruction had been severely neglected," he continued, ignoring Sydney's snort at the minor understatement. "They had created an essentially amoral operative, one who would base all his decisions in the field on expediency, not ethics. Professionally, I was impressed… and intrigued. He is, after all, the unintentional byproduct of Project Christmas corrupted and carried to the extreme."  
  
He paused then, unable to look directly at his daughter. He didn't know if she had ever taken her knowledge of his involvement in that operation to its logical conclusion. He didn't know if she had ever confronted the fact that so much of what had happened in the past few years could be traced not only to her mother's treacherous actions but to his own research gone disastrously awry.   
  
"You're not the one who did this to him, Dad," Sydney said quietly.  
  
"No," he shook his head. "Maybe not directly, but I did make it possible."  
  
"So that's what you see in him? Your own guilt?" Her tone was more inquisitive than accusatory.  
  
"Perhaps," he said slowly. "But that's not all. I still see potential in him too. That's something I don't think I saw - or ever looked for - until I knew who he was. He's not inherently evil, Sydney."  
  
"I know what amoral means, Dad," she said with an attempt at a wry smile. "He doesn't have any idea what good is either - or he doesn't care. He just does whatever anybody bigger and stronger tells him to do, regardless of whether it's right or wrong."  
  
"Yes. One thing that he particularly excels at is following orders and he will do almost anything to please his superiors - no matter who they might be."  
  
"And if that superior were you instead of Mom?" she asked.   
  
"Then I think that he has the potential to be a different person."  
  
"You really think it's not too late to change him?"  
  
"He's my son," he said, meeting her gaze openly at last. "Just as much as you are my daughter. I have to believe that there is still something worth saving in him."  
  
She looked away from him, gnawing her lower lip as she retreated into uneasy contemplation of his words. He wondered whether she would be able to absorb these revelations as well as she had so many others. Finally she looked up at him again, a resigned expression on her tired face.  
  
"I'm not calling him Stephen."  
  
* * * *  
  
Knowing how impatient Sydney was for any activity, Irina quickly passed along the rest of the information that Sark had accumulated while tracking her. Much of it Jack had already seen in Hong Kong; some had been added in recent months.  
  
"You've seen him lately?" he had asked over the encrypted cell-phone.  
  
"Not since he left," she had replied. "But I've spoken with him."  
  
"He's decided what he's going to do then. He's found his corner of the market."  
  
"So it would seem."  
  
"And that is…?"  
  
There had been an almost imperceptible pause before she answered. "Whatever he's working on is low-profile and high-tech. Industrial espionage is a distinct possibility."  
  
"Substantial profits, minimal risk, no partners."  
  
She must have heard something in his tone for her response had been tinged with amusement. He had almost been able to visualize her smile. "You know what he's doing; you know where he is."  
  
"I know where he's been," he had admitted. "There were operations in Toronto and Basel recently that have had his stamp on them."  
  
She hadn't asked what he had recognized; he hadn't offered to explain.  
  
"He'll be in touch with you," she had said instead.  
  
"What makes you so confident of that?"  
  
This time he had heard her soft, low laugh. "I've been part of his life for nearly as long as he can remember. He is accustomed to me; I'm familiar to him, but you… You're a novelty, and I think he seems to be quite taken with the concept of having a father. You intrigue him, Jack. Sooner or later, his curiosity will get the better of him."  
  
He hadn't asked why she believed this; she hadn't offered to explain.  
  
* * * *  
  
Their first joint-intelligence operation proved to be of little informative value - but seeing Sydney come to life once in the field again had been priceless. It had also been a shock for Jack to realize just how much being tied to a desk at the Agency was killing her. There was a startling difference between the pale young woman who had been drifting further and further away from him and the vibrant one who had charmed her way into the Frankfurt facility to steal a glimpse at their research. She was still glowing happily even days later - even after they'd determined that the files she had downloaded gave them little more than a few tantalizing yet disconnected hints. It had been the first thing that she'd done outside of a psychiatrist's office to help investigate what had happened to her.  
  
Despite the fact that there seemed nothing further to be gained from the files, Sydney continued to pore over them. After the first week Jack was beginning to grow slightly concerned at the obsessive nature of her study, but her smiles - brighter than they'd been in months - alleviated some of his apprehension. When Kendall assigned him to oversee a mission in Mumbai, he left for India with only minor misgivings. His sense of unease was heightened, however, upon his return three days later.   
  
Sydney continued to smile brightly, but there was a different - almost mischievous - quality to it now. Jack couldn't decide whether to interpret her new attitude as another step in her recovery, or as a sign of something more troubling. Reports from her doctors indicated that new patterns seemed to be developing in her psychological evaluations - greater openness in some areas, unexpected evasiveness in others.   
  
He was certain that she was hiding something from him, but he couldn't determine precisely what it was. He had thought at first that she was still scrutinizing the Frankfurt reports but soon realized that the computer files she closed whenever he approached her working at home didn't look like anything he had ever seen before. Speculating about the possible source of those unfamiliar documents merely fueled his trepidation.  
  
He was somewhat relieved when she sat down across from him in the living room one evening but didn't pick up one of her usual books. She was ready to talk.  
  
"There was a dummy file in the download," she said. "It was designed to delete itself from the server after twenty-four hours but remain on any copy made. It was a message. From Sark - wanting to arrange a meeting."  
  
"Why?" he asked when she didn't continue.  
  
"It didn't say. Just had a time and place." Anyone else would have believed the lie, but Jack was beginning to know his daughter better than he ever had before.  
  
"Have you decided whether or not you want to go?"  
  
"Yes," she said quietly.  
  
"When is it? Where?"  
  
"New Orleans." She looked away. "Last week."  
  
* * * * 


	22. twentytwo

* * * *  
  
Jack watched his daughter fidget nervously. He had known that sooner or later his children would have to come to terms with their unexpected relationship on their own. Nothing that he or Irina could do would be able to settle things between them. He shook his head ruefully and permitted himself a faint smile. "It was inevitable. I should have guessed that's what you'd been trying to hide all week."  
  
"It seemed like the best way," she said with a relieved sigh at his unruffled acceptance. "I needed to see him by myself… without you or Mom running interference. I needed to see if he'd changed as much as everything else has these past two years."  
  
"And do you think he has?"  
  
"No," she said, one corner of her mouth turning upward ironically. "And yes."  
  
He could tell that something significant had changed between them at that meeting. Now that her fears about his reaction were allayed, she seemed almost relaxed.   
  
"What happened?"  
  
"There wasn't any bloodshed, if that's what you're worried about."  
  
"Sydney." He didn't want to push her, but his frown was reflexive.  
  
"We just talked, Dad," she said. "He just seemed like Sark - professional, confident, maybe trying a little too hard to be witty, but mostly just the same as he's always been," she shrugged. "Except that now we're related."  
  
"What did he want?"   
  
She grinned slightly. "To make sure I wasn't going to shoot him again."  
  
"A valid concern," he said dryly. "But I can't believe that was the only item on his agenda."  
  
Her glance flickered away for a moment then back. "He made me another offer."  
  
"To work for him?"  
  
"I would never work for him," she said heatedly, and he heard the unintentional emphasis.  
  
"With him?" he amended. Her lips tightened as she caught her slip. "It wasn't as easy to turn down this time, was it? I'm sure he made a very compelling argument."  
  
"Nothing I hadn't heard before." Again, he was fairly certain that her casual lie would have fooled others, but he had been expecting it.  
  
"Nothing you've ever been in a position to seriously consider before, either."  
  
"I could never work with him, Dad," she protested.  
  
"Why not?" His tone was gentle and she stared at him in surprise. He didn't blame her. The question seemed so unlikely, coming from him. But he couldn't deny the potential he saw in their possible partnership. It was an objective assessment that they were two of the best operatives he'd seen in his career. The thought of what they could do if they ever decided to willingly work together was staggering. "The two of you would be a good team."  
  
"We'd be a great team, but that isn't the point. I won't commit treason!"  
  
"Simply meeting with him the way you did, Sydney, could be considered an act of treason," he reminded her.  
  
She giggled suddenly. "Not to mention all those times you've talked to Mom," she added. "Forget about firing us. If Kendall ever finds out any of this, he's going to have us tried and convicted after he recovers from his stroke." Her words were too true to be very funny and she sobered again quickly.   
  
"Do you think he would ask you to commit a more blatant act of treason than just meeting him?" he asked. "Did he tell you what any of his future plans might be?"  
  
"Of course not. I mean no, he didn't tell me and I don't know…" Her voice trailed off and she sighed. "Actually, he offered to let me pick the missions."  
  
"Interesting approach." He could almost admire the neatness of the proposal. There were few things, he suspected, that would entice Sydney more effectively than the promise of control over her own fortunes. And the boy wouldn't be giving up anything that he particularly cared about in the bargain. From his own perspective, the situation would have the added benefit of putting his son into Sydney's sphere of influence. "He needs direction because he has no compass of his own. You'd be a good conscience for him."  
  
She gave him a startled look then burst into laughter. "It's scary how much you two think alike. Dad, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you were trying to talk me into going with him."  
  
"No, of course not," he said. "I do, however, see the appeal in the arrangement… for both of you."  
  
"I see the appeal too, okay? But I know he was taught manipulation by one of the best. I know he was trying to sell me what I wanted to hear, but I'm not buying it. So don't worry. Your children won't be uniting to take on the world any time soon. Maybe I don't hate him as much as I thought I did, but I don't trust him an inch more than ever."  
  
"I wasn't doubting you," he said. "I just wanted to be sure I understood how you saw the situation."  
  
"I know, Dad," she replied. "Well, that was my professional opinion. Now do you want to know what I think of him personally?"  
  
"By all means."  
  
"I think Mom may have been right about him. He may not understand exactly what a family is yet, but I think that he likes the idea of having one." Her expression grew pensive. "I remember how much I missed Mom as I was growing up, and how much I missed you. I remember how badly I wanted all of us to be together. I had this image of what I wanted - this perfect family. In the past few years… well, before…" She gave him a melancholy smile. "As up and down as my relationship with Mom has been, I'm glad that I got a chance to know her even a little bit better. And I'm glad that you and I are finally getting closer. It's been too long."  
  
Jack found that he was blinking rapidly as his daughter's voice wobbled. It had been more than four years since they'd first started trying to rebuild the relationship that they'd never really had to begin with. Strangely enough, they'd come farther in the past few months than they had in the two years before Sydney had disappeared. Their weekly dinners out, their nightly reading in quiet companionship, their comfortable conversations as they sat in rush hour traffic, even the time they spent together working on unsanctioned missions to find out the truth behind her missing time - all of these simple things meant more to him than he could have ever imagined. Not for the first time, he regretted that it had taken them so many years to reach this point, but he was grateful that it didn't seem to be too late after all.  
  
Sydney cleared her throat and continued. "I know what it's like to want something that deep down you don't think you'll ever be able to have. So I can really sort of understand how Sar… Ste… oh, hell!" Her tone was suddenly so exasperated that he couldn't help smiling. "The brat. I understand a little about how the brat feels now that he knows who you are. Who we are," she corrected herself. "Who he is. And I'm sure he's had that picture of a perfect family in his head for a long time too. I really do believe that he wants to be part of this - no matter how not-perfect we are."  
  
Part of this, he thought. Part of this family. Not-perfect was a bit of an understatement. But he suddenly realized that it was more of a family than it had been in decades. It wasn't just that he and Sydney had grown closer or that she was persistently renewing her relationship with her mother. He and Irina had also reached a reluctant and unexpected truce in recent years as a result of their shared objectives. And then there was Stephen, who had never been a part of any of it before, now forging his own bonds with each of them. The boy had his complex relationship with Irina and his apparent truce with Sydney. Although he had Irina's assurance that Stephen was gradually warming to the idea of having a father, Jack knew that there could be no half-hearted acceptance on his own part. No matter what the boy had done in the past or what he might do in the future - Jack knew that there were no conditions on a father's love, not even for a son so flawed and damaged as his.   
  
"What did he say to give you that impression?"  
  
"It wasn't really so much what he said," she shrugged. "There's just something in his eyes now. That's what you see in him, isn't it? His perception of us has changed, but his perception of himself is different now too."   
  
"I think so," he said. "I hope so."   
  
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this before, Dad. It was just something that I had to do."  
  
"I know," he said. "I understand."  
  
Although he knew that the siblings' relationship was not - and probably never would be - uncomplicated, he was pleased that it didn't look as though he and Irina were going to have to worry about fratricide in the near future.   
  
After Sydney had gone to bed, however, he allowed his other concerns to surface. She had given in too quickly, he thought. She had admitted too easily how tempting her little brother's offer to leave behind one life and start a new one had been. The impression that there had been something more to their meeting continued to nag at him. He was positive there were still some things about it that she hadn't told him.  
  
Like where, exactly, those new files on her computer had come from, and what they contained. The distinct possibility that they had been provided by Sark did not ease his mind. Treachery was practically a family tradition.  
  
* * * * 


	23. twentythree

* * * *  
  
Jack had no clear idea where Sark was nor could he predict the boy's next move, but he followed the trail left behind with interest. Three weeks later another research facility was hit -this time in France- and again Jack could detect the telltale fingerprints on the operation. Although none of the infiltrated organizations appeared to have anything in common at first glance, he could see the subtle pattern that they formed.   
  
He began with the assumption that the research heist at the Swiss pharmaceutical company had been merely a fund-raising endeavor. Presumably the profits from it had been used to finance the more elaborate operation at the electronics laboratory in Canada. The prototypes stolen from the Toronto lab had enabled him to conduct the Paris raid. None of these break-ins ever made even the local news reports. Only Echelon intercepts of frantic and irate communiqués between careless board members revealed that they had occurred at all.   
  
The Paris hit finally sparked the official interest of the CIA. Rumors floating through the international intelligence community hinted that the laboratory had been doing research on infrasonic weaponry. All the usual terrorist organizations and covert agencies -as well as a few of the more unscrupulous military defense contractors- were scrambling to put in bids on the stolen data. After exchanging some very carefully worded messages, one of the CIA's Swedish assets managed to set up a meet in Göteborg. Kendall had taken some convincing.   
  
"You really think Sark will show up for the transfer in person?" Kendall had asked.  
  
"It's a distinct possibility," he had replied. He had known that professionally he couldn't afford to treat the boy any differently now, nor could he expect that Sark's new knowledge would in any way affect his behavior in the field. Jack had proceeded to analyze the situation as objectively as he would have three years earlier. "His current operation seems to be small, and I doubt he employs many people that he would trust with this sort of assignment. All intel indicates that he's still operating independently."  
  
"So there's no chance that this is just the iceberg tip of some larger scheme?"   
  
"Given his past affiliations, there's always that chance," Jack had admitted. "But I don't believe it's a very likely one at this point."  
  
"You think the kid's still pissed at Derevko for selling him up the river?" There had been an amused glint in the man's eyes at the thought.   
  
"I wouldn't count on it. They have too much history. Sark may enjoy not being under her thumb anymore, but he's bright enough to know that he doesn't have the experience or the resources to challenge her directly either. He won't do anything foolish on that front. Right now he seems to be trying to stay out of her sphere of influence altogether."  
  
"Probably the safest thing for him," Kendall had grudgingly agreed. "What about his association with Sloane?"  
  
"His allegiance to Arvin Sloane is token at best. Considering how quickly he gave up the Mexico City operation -as well as the subsequent intel he provided on the remainder of Sloane's assets- it's questionable whether he ever had any real loyalty to him."   
  
"He does have a persistent tendency to bite the hand that feeds him, doesn't he?" Kendall had said, frowning thoughtfully. "I want that park crawling with our people."  
  
"You know we won't bring him in that way." Irina would have smirked at the shading in his tone, but Kendall hadn't heard it.  
  
Instead, the director had smiled thinly. "I don't want to bring him in."  
  
Two days later Jack found himself walking through the Liseberg Nöjespark and wondering how many ways the plan could go wrong. The leaves of the surrounding hardwoods were beginning to change in the early Scandinavian autumn -a marked difference from the lingering warmth and perpetual greenery of southern California- but Jack scarcely noticed. Despite the multitude of tall blonds, he found his particular towheaded contact relatively quickly. The boy was wearing a nondescript blue jacket that was only slightly heavier than what most of the natives sported.  
  
It was the first time he'd seen his son since Hong Kong and he took a moment to study Sark before he approached. Sydney had assured him that he'd seemed fit when she'd met him in New Orleans, but Jack was relieved to be able to confirm that assessment for himself. He didn't miss the irony of having gone through nearly this same scenario with his daughter just a few months ago. As Sydney's had on that other occasion, the boy's expression brightened suddenly at the sight of Jack as well, but it was quickly restrained.  
  
"Audio?" he asked as Jack drew closer.  
  
"No. They do trust some of us."  
  
"So there are lip-readers," Sark guessed with a grin. Jack knew that he would interpret the silence as confirmation. "We walk, then. That should at least make them work for it. How many are there?"  
  
"Enough."   
  
They moved slowly through the crowds of late-season tourists. Their path sloped steadily upward and Jack wondered if Sark had a specific destination in mind.   
  
"You knew that this was an official set-up," he said as they walked. "Why did you agree to come?"  
  
Sark shrugged. "You want the data, don't you? Your money spends just as nicely as anyone else's."  
  
"The amount we offered isn't anywhere close to the market-value of that research."  
  
"Don't worry. I've already met my asking price."  
  
Jack frowned at him. "You do realize that those two statements are inherently contradictory? Who else have you sold it to?"  
  
"Do your own legwork. Half a million isn't nearly enough to buy both the research and the info on my other buyers."  
  
"What about three-quarters?"   
  
"What?" Sark threw him a startled glance -nonplussed by the abrupt change in expected tactics- but didn't stop moving. He definitely had a destination in mind, Jack surmised.  
  
"Three-quarters of a million. I've been authorized to negotiate your status as an Agency asset."  
  
The boy's step faltered at last and he paused to stare at Jack for a moment. Then he began to laugh. "Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?" he snorted as he resumed walking. "That's your idea of a bribe?"  
  
"Your operating budget isn't what it used to be."  
  
"It doesn't have to be, for what I need."  
  
"Then don't scoff at the amount. You've given us much more for far less in the past."  
  
"Drugs, torture, and incarceration were my incentives at the time, as I recall."  
  
"Those still aren't entirely out of the equation. It would be imprudent to waste this opportunity." They both knew that the CIA would not be nearly as lenient with him if he if he ended up in custody a second time. Running him as an agent -stockpiling Agency goodwill for his collaboration- was the only form of protection that Jack could provide.  
  
"And if I don't cooperate?"  
  
"Don't be difficult, Stephen," he said tiredly. "This is the best deal you're going to get from us."  
  
Sark's expression was still full of suspicion. "How did you sell them on this?"  
  
"Kendall thinks it's his idea. He's prepared to permit you your freedom in exchange for your assistance. He knows that getting you to flip on Derevko is improbable, but he wants anything you can give us on Sloane. We don't have anyone else close to him anymore."  
  
"I'm not either," Sark protested. "The man is completely cracked. I may be willing to work with some unsavory characters, but Sloane is unhinged. I can't deal with insane people and I won't be your liaison in this."  
  
Jack could afford to be patient. Their time wasn't limitless, but there was enough of it to allow Sark to feign absorbing the proposal. They didn't speak as Sark steered them toward a long line. A few crumpled krona notes changed hands and soon they were seated in the last row of a roller coaster car. General opinion at the Agency had gone with the assumption that Sark would chose one of the more isolated attractions. Jack had suspected that he wouldn't be so obligingly predictable, but he had not anticipated the Balder. The boy's grin was cheerfully malicious.  
  
"Admit it, athair. You didn't really want to leave here without riding their signature attraction."  
  
Jack looked back at him blandly. The coaster began moving and the noise of the machinery, as well as the children's screams and the roar of the wind made further discussion temporarily impossible. He used the opportunity to scrutinize his still-grinning son at close range.   
  
It was difficult to imagine simply by looking at him that this seemingly lighthearted boy was a wanted criminal on three continents. There was no hint of darkness in his mischievous blue eyes, no trace of concern about the negotiations they were trying to conduct. No reflection of the things he had done or the things he had endured stared out of those eyes. There was only pure enjoyment of the sudden acceleration that plastered them to their seats, the thrill as the ground seemed to rush toward them at an impossible angle.  
  
That was how he had survived. He had an ability to compartmentalize his life to an extraordinary degree, to live wholly within the moment - each instant unconnected to any other. Somewhere on another level his long-range planning ability was compartmentalized as well. While the strategy might allow him to retain his sanity for a time, Jack worried about the long-term implications. His train of thought was diverted as the coaster began to climb the next steep section of tracks and Sark raked his fingers through his wind-ravaged hair.   
  
"If you wore it shorter, you wouldn't have to spike it up like that to disguise the cowlick."  
  
"If I've inherited the Bristow hairline, I'm keeping it like this for as long as I can."  
  
Jack resisted the urge to sigh and eyed the couple in row ahead of them instead. The teenagers didn't seem to be paying them any attention; they were too involved with each other to care about -or even notice - the English-speaking men behind them. It was still too soon to press for an acknowledgement that Sark would accept the terms of the arrangement. There were plenty of other topics to discuss in the meanwhile.  
  
"You tried to recruit Sydney again."  
  
Sark shrugged unapologetically. "I'd make better use of her than you are. Right now I have much more to offer her than you do."   
  
"I'm not sure that she would really enjoy being an international fugitive."  
  
"It's not that bad."  
  
"We've all gone to a great deal of trouble to bring her back in one piece. I'd appreciate it if you didn't do anything to jeopardize her now."  
  
"That's the problem though, isn't it?" Sark asked. "She isn't exactly all in one piece. There seem to be a few bits unaccounted for."  
  
One of his suspicions was confirmed with that response. The boy's comprehensive offer to his sister had undoubtedly included the promise of more information about her missing years.  
  
"Don't force her to do anything irrevocable."  
  
"Sydney never… hardly ever does anything that she doesn't want to do. I certainly don't hold that kind of sway over her."  
  
The discussion was abruptly curtailed as they were slammed back against the molded-foam seats. This was not an ideal way to conduct negotiations, Jack thought, but he could see the conversational advantages to it as Sark used the interruption to change the subject when the coaster slowed again.  
  
"Sloane knows who I am," he said in an off-hand manner. Jack knew he wasn't referring to a professional sort of recognition, nor was the comment as casual as his tone implied.  
  
"Hong Kong?"  
  
"You and Irina weren't exactly subtle."  
  
It would be petty to remind him that he'd started it - telling Meigui it was his sister who had shot him. He'd probably been half-delirious at the time anyway. "Will that make things difficult for you?"  
  
The boy gave him a disbelieving look and shook his head. "That information isn't something I'm particularly comfortable sharing to begin with. The fact that Irina seemed to be concerned about his learning of our connection… concerns me." Jack absorbed that statement as Sark continued. "It may be that she wants me to be wary of him so I don't interfere with an ongoing project… which is annoying, but not necessarily worrisome."   
  
"Or she's trying to protect you from him."  
  
"Which bothers me more," he admitted. "That bloody obsession of his disturbs me. Do you think there's something in the Rambaldi papers which seems relevant to him now that he knows who I really am?" That possibility had crossed Jack's mind briefly, but he could see that it had been weighing more heavily on the boy. "What is it about him that they find so enthralling?" He sounded genuinely baffled.  
  
Jack was about to respond, but nearly bit his tongue as the roller coaster plunged over yet another precipice. The disruptions were becoming irritating.  
  
"You've seen first-hand what Rambaldi's legacies are capable of," he said when he could. "You aren't impressed by that?"  
  
"No, I'm not." There was a hint of defiance in the tone, as well as something that Jack couldn't quite place.   
  
"Mexico City," he said quietly. "Sixty-two dead."  
  
"That wasn't my idea."  
  
He'd heard that reasoning used on several other occasions, and finally it was one time too many. "When are you going to start taking responsibility for your own actions? You didn't have to do that; you chose to."  
  
"I needed to maintain my position with Sloane. I couldn't have managed Irina's extraction without him and his resources."  
  
"That's a lie," he stated flatly. "You could have found another way. Even if you hadn't, Sloane still would have retrieved her without your assistance. You didn't have to turn that device on."  
  
"Is this going to turn into an ethics lecture?"  
  
"Would you be able to recognize if it did?" Sark's eyes flashed in anger at the criticism but Jack didn't care about that. He had seen the flicker of dismay that had preceded it.  
  
"You're hardly in a position to judge me," Sark said irritably.   
  
"Maybe not. But I am in a position to understand. I know there are times when killing is necessary, when it's the only reasonable alternative. And there are times when it serves no purpose whatsoever, when it's merely a symptom of madness. In Mexico City you crossed that line. That wasn't a rational strategy; that was an act of insanity."   
  
He caught a glimpse of his stricken expression before Sark abruptly looked away and watched carefully as the boy tried -and failed- to school his features into an impassive mask. When Sark turned back, the look in his eyes was the closest thing to remorse that Jack had ever seen in them.  
  
"I didn't believe it would work."   
  
Once more, he was caught unprepared as the car dropped suddenly. It was amateurish of him to lose track of his surroundings while he talked with his son, but somehow he couldn't divide his focus between them.  
  
"You need to start making better decisions," Jack said as they began to climb the next hill.  
  
"I've managed to do fine without your advice for the past twenty-five years."  
  
The statement was so patently erroneous that Jack could only shake his head. The ride was nearly over and he knew that it was time to push.  
  
"Take the deal, Stephen."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I'm your father and I said so." That line had never worked well with Sydney either, he thought as Sark grinned crookedly. "You came here prepared to collaborate. You wouldn't have agreed to meet an Agency representative who was offering such a paltry sum otherwise."  
  
"I didn't agree to meet an Agency representative, athair."   
  
Jack paused briefly.   
  
"You've already made up your mind to do the right thing."  
  
"Right doesn't have anything to do with it."  
  
"Make it have something to do with it. You may have been raised in a moral vacuum, but you're not an idiot. It's not too late for you to develop a conscience."  
  
"Borrowing Sydney's would be easier."  
  
"It isn't supposed to be easy."  
  
The short remainder of the ride was spent in relative silence. Jack was heartened by the boy's pensive frown. He knew that the decision to accept the Agency proposal had already been made. He hoped that the troublesome thoughts currently occupying his son were concerning the more personal aspects of their disjointed conversation. As the coaster glided toward the terminal, Sark pulled a plain envelope from his jacket pocket.   
  
"The account number?" he asked, handing the envelope to Jack.  
  
"Just the number? You don't want to confirm the transfer?"  
  
Sark shrugged. "I trust you."  
  
Jack stared at him. Those three words were not readily spoken by any member of their family - and especially not between them. What astonished him most was the utter sincerity that he heard. Jack gave him the code. As they stepped out of the car, he couldn't help glancing at the contents of the envelope. It was too bulky and its weight seemed excessive for mere computer disks.  
  
"Data storage prototypes," Sark said, the ghost of his usual smirk returning.   
  
"Two of them?"  
  
"One's the weaponry data. The other is their defensive research."  
  
"Defensive research? How much did you get selling that elsewhere?"  
  
"Nothing." His grin broadened. "Nobody else asked for it."  
  
Jack watched as the boy slipped into the throng of other fair-haired people and disappeared. He smiled faintly and headed for the park's exit.  
  
* * * * 


	24. twentyfour

* * * *  
  
- two months later -  
  
Jack looked up from his computer at the tentative tap and saw Marshall hovering anxiously in his doorway.  
  
"Hi," the engineer said. "Could I…? Do you mind…?" He made a complicated two-handed gesture that Jack interpreted as a request to come in and sit down. It didn't require any great intuitive leap to guess what the topic of conversation would be when Marshall carefully closed the door behind him. "I don't know if you know yet, but I thought you'd want to if you didn't already," he began even before he had settled into the chair. "Sort of a little heads-up just in case it meant anything -which it might not- but you'd probably be a better judge of that than I would. Kendall's pulled the Sark files."  
  
"Which ones?" Jack asked when Marshall paused expectantly.  
  
"All of them. The interrogation tapes, the mission logs, the paper transcripts. Everything. Even Sydney's field reports from four or five years ago. Every scrap of information we have on him. And this…" He handed a sheet of paper across the desk. "These are the keywords that were added to the Echelon watch-list this morning." He practically quivered on the edge of his seat as Jack read. "So should I let Sydney know? You know, warn her?"  
  
"About what?"  
  
"About…" Marshall gawked at him for an instant. "She knows, right? Because the other day when she said that he… and then I… She does know, right?"  
  
"She knows."  
  
"Oh good," he breathed in evident relief. "So I should tell her about this then? I mean it might be nothing - just Kendall being paranoid. Although I suppose it isn't really paranoia if they really are out to get you. Not that Sark is," he added hurriedly. "Because he's been cooperating really well lately. The intel on that syndicate operating out of Cairo? Sweet. And that was really cool of him to give us the prototypes for the next-generation cultured diamond wafers… Well, actually we didn't ask him to steal those and it wasn't really a matter of national security. More of an industrial intelligence kind of thing, but who knew that those were so far along and…"  
  
Remembering the off-hand comment Sark had made once about employing Marshall himself, Jack wondered briefly there was an ulterior motive for his son's periodic plying of the resident genius with shiny new toys. "Thank you, Marshall."   
  
"You're welcome… That was goodbye, wasn't it? Okay. But about Sydney?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Right."  
  
Jack looked at the page once more after the door closed, then tucked it into his jacket pocket. He was interrupted again a few hours later when Sydney dropped into the chair in front of his desk. She hadn't bothered to knock.  
  
"Will is freaked about something. Some kind of research Kendall has him doing. He won't tell me what it's about but he has this look in his eye." She leaned forward and propped her arms on the desk. "It's about the brat, isn't it?"  
  
He had been mildly amused when he'd first realized why she called him that - an apt American insult with its fitting Russian subtext. It was much easier than calling her brother by name. He nodded.  
  
"Don't worry about it."  
  
"Don't worry about it?" she repeated indignantly. "Dad, tell me what's going on."  
  
"Just minor repercussions from the incident in Hong Kong."  
  
"You mean the incident where I turned up out of the blue for no particular reason?"  
  
"I mean the incident where you shot the particular reason. As we began dealing with the aftermath of your reappearance, your mother and I may have inadvertently also begun dispelling the notion that Sark is quite as solitary as he's always appeared to be."  
  
"What you mean is that you and Mom acted like a couple of mother hens over him and people have started figuring out we're related. If we end up in prison because of that little brat, he'd better get us out." They looked at each other for a moment, then Sydney laughed. "You know, he probably would spring us just for the fun of it."  
  
"In about sixteen to twenty months," he agreed with a small smile. "It won't come to that."  
  
"It won't?"  
  
"No."  
  
* * * *  
  
"Three days ago, we had a walk-in to our Far Eastern office," Tippin said at the next morning's briefing. The analyst had scrupulously avoided meeting Sydney's eyes since he'd arrived and had been all but ignoring Jack as well. Sydney nibbled fretfully on her lower lip as she watched him but stopped when she caught Jack's critical frown. "His name is Joseph Obouhov and he's been giving us plenty of information on the Pacific Rim operations of a Russian arms trade group suspected of having ties to Arvin Sloane. So far, most of what's been processed seems to be checking out. We have surveillance photos of several alleged members of the group that Obouhov has identified for us. Alexei Ushakov," he said as the man's picture flashed on the screen behind him. Several other photos appeared in rapid succession. "Karpovich. Turgenev. Risanovsky. And this guy. Look familiar?"  
  
"It's Sark," Sydney said. "Isn't that his assignment? To get close to Sloane for us?"  
  
"Technically yes," Kendall answered. "But that's not what's so interesting about finding him in the middle of this." His tone suggested that 'interesting' wasn't really the word he wanted to use. "Tippin?"  
  
"Obouhov didn't call him Sark during his debriefing," Will continued. "When we showed him this picture… Obouhov called him Derevkovich."   
  
Jack felt the focus of the room shift, but there was no sudden outcry of surprise from anyone. Not even Dixon seemed startled. Beside him Marshall fidgeted in agitation, no doubt uncertain whether it would appear more suspicious to look at Jack or not look at him. Sydney met his eyes and cocked an eyebrow. Kendall's gaze swept the table, obviously unhappy with what he saw.  
  
"Am I the only one here who didn't know who that son of a bitch was?"  
  
"I didn't," Will reminded him.  
  
"Neither did I," Dixon said calmly. "But it's been speculation for years. Are we sure it isn't just an honorific? A name that's been given to him because she treats him like a son?" Even as he asked, however, it was clear that he knew the answer.  
  
"You've known all along," Kendall ignored the interruptions. "You know the rest, of course. If he wasn't lying about his age when he was here, then either your wife was having an affair before she left you or that arrogant Limey bastard is yours too!"  
  
  
  
Jack couldn't help glancing at Sydney again. Her lips were twitching ever so slightly. The outburst was strikingly familiar, but he knew that correcting either Sark's nationality or his legitimacy this time would probably send Kendall into the apoplectic fit that Sydney had predicted.   
  
"Who is he, Jack?" Kendall persisted. "Sark? Derevkovich? Bristow?"  
  
"I don't know what name he actually prefers," Jack admitted. "But he is Irina's. And he is mine."  
  
"I really don't claim him," Sydney interjected. Jack frowned at her and wondered if both of his children had somehow inherited a defective gene for ill-timed flippancy. She shrugged back at him unrepentantly, reaffirming the supposition.  
  
"This is unacceptable," Kendall said.  
  
"It doesn't change anything."  
  
"Like hell it doesn't! This Agency has made more exceptions for your daughter in the past five years than it usually does for most officers in their entire careers. I'll be damned if we make one more exception for your son."  
  
"I've never asked you to."  
  
"Putting him in the field without the toxin capsule? That led directly to Dixon losing him."  
  
"I told you from the beginning that was an ill-advised course. No one could have maintained control of him under those conditions."  
  
"You did in Copenhagen."  
  
"Which should prove that I've never made exceptions for him either. He didn't escape on my watch. But he's out now and there's nothing we can do about it but use him. We run him like we would any other agent. He's still the best link we have to Sloane."  
  
"And Derevko. Damn it, Jack…" Kendall swore again. "What the hell is wrong with you? Your wife's KGB, your daughter's been who-knows-where the past two years, and your son is a goddamn terrorist! Your whole family is a threat to national security. I ought to have you and Sydney both detained just as a preemptive measure."  
  
Jack didn't comment. He understood Kendall's need to vent and knew that only after his initial anger was out of the way could they begin a rational discussion.  
  
"So what are we going to do about Obouhov's intel?" Dixon asked in the brief silence that followed. "It's still good, right?"   
  
"So far," Will said. He looked torn between outrage and disbelief. The confirmation that it was his best friend's little brother who had been responsible for his Taipei ordeal was no doubt unsettling, Jack mused. As was the implication that Sydney had known for some time and failed to tell him.  
  
"Have we determined why he walked in?" Sydney asked, her gentle tone at odds with the nature of the query.   
  
Will shook his head, struggling to slip back into professional mode as he flipped through a few pages of notes. "Just said that he wanted out. He'd had enough."  
  
"No specific incident to trigger it?" she pressed. Jack nodded approvingly as he saw where she was headed and let her continue on her own. "Any chance that he could have been sent?"  
  
"Sent?" Will repeated.  
  
"Sent," Dixon nodded, catching on as well. "Could be that Sark learned his lesson from the situation with Rajkot. Don't be the only possible source to blame for leaks. Obouhov brings us the intel so that Sark doesn't have to risk the contact himself. It's a possible strategy."  
  
"And one we apparently have to go with for the present," Kendall said crossly. "Amidst all the information Obouhov's been spouting, there's a weapons deal that we can't allow to proceed. We assume that Sark knows we're going to act on this. Jack? Can you provide an even remotely objective assessment?"  
  
"He won't make it easy for us," he replied. "His counter-measures will be fully functional. But Obouhov wouldn't have made it to us with this information unless Sark wanted him to. If we move on it, we won't be walking into a trap."  
  
"I hope you're willing to stake your life on that," Kendall said. "You're leading the mission."   
  
When the briefing was over, Jack watched Sydney follow Tippin as he bolted from the room. He didn't envy her the task of dealing with the emotional fallout of these revelations. He'd much rather handle the political repercussions. And judging by the expression on Kendall's face as he'd stormed out, he was going to have plenty of opportunities to do just that. He followed, noting absently that Dixon had already cornered Marshall.   
  
* * * *  
  
Within the week, Jack's team was inserted into Khabarovsk to retrieve the cache of ICBMs that had been liberated from a former Red Army stockpile. Although resistance by the Russian terrorists was fierce, the CIA succeeded in recovering the weapons with minimal casualties of their own. Sark had been notably absent from the field. As soon as the missiles were en route to the extraction point under Dixon's supervision, Jack made an unobtrusive detour, switching off his communications gear and tracking devices as he went.  
  
There was a soft sound, barely a whisper of a cleared throat. It could have been mistaken for almost any quiet, random noise in the vast, abandoned warehouse, but Jack had heard it for what it was.  
  
"Athair."  
  
"Stephen," he said as Sark melted out of the shadows.   
  
"I assume everything went according to plan."  
  
"We have the missiles. Ushakov and an unidentified suspect are in custody. The rest escaped. You should be able to maintain your credibility. How is your approach to Sloane proceeding?"  
  
"I've been getting closer to returning to his inner circle, but this little setback won't make things any easier."  
  
"Probably not," he agreed. "But it was the right thing to do. You've helped to save countless lives today."  
  
"I really wish you'd stop doing that," Sark frowned half-heartedly. "I'm not like you. We don't think the same way."  
  
"Sydney seems to believe that we do." The boy laughed softly at that and Jack wondered once again just what else had been discussed at their meeting that Sydney hadn't told him.  
  
"Knowing how the other thinks doesn't necessarily mean that we agree."  
  
"True enough. But it's a start." he said. "While I'm here, would you care to explain this Derevkovich stunt to me? I was under the impression you had wanted to keep a low profile."  
  
"It wasn't my idea." There was a familiar smirk to go along with the familiar refrain. "Since my… relationship was inevitably becoming common knowledge, Irina seemed to think that we ought to use it to our advantage."  
  
"Because your own reputation isn't intimidating enough?"   
  
"It has suffered a bit in my absence," Sark shrugged. "How quickly they forget. If it makes you feel any better, I'll use the name Bristow the next time I infiltrate an American faction."  
  
"That won't be necessary. I'm not keeping score. It was just a matter of curiosity. You know your real name has always been a subject of speculation at the Agency."  
  
"You can tell them that I don't have one." A shadow flitted momentarily across his face before he grinned mischievously. "I'm sure Derevkovich went over well though. Did Kendall have an aneurysm?"  
  
Jack knew that he should be concerned about both of his children gleefully contemplating the director's impending stroke, but he couldn't quite manage it. "Nearly. Does that bother you?"  
  
"Kendall?"   
  
"Not having a real name."  
  
"Why would it? It's not as if I'm required to hand out my CV in this line of work."   
  
"I just thought there might be another reason that you'd chosen to go by Derevkovich."  
  
"I didn't choose it, athair. It's just convenient for the moment. Most of the time one name is just as good as any other."  
  
"Like Stepanushka?"  
  
"Maybe not that one," he grinned. Jack could see the moment of belated realization. "You two have discussed this, haven't you?"   
  
"It came up. We needed it for the paperwork."  
  
"What paperwork?" He frowned warily as Jack handed him an envelope. "What is this?"  
  
"Your pardon."  
  
"My pardon?" he repeated blankly. "Kendall would never agree to this."  
  
"Kendall didn't. Devlin pushed it through a few days ago." While Devlin had been leery of absolving Irina's son, Jack's assurances -as well as Sydney's unexpected support- had helped to persuade him to endorse the measure. Sark's access to Arvin Sloane had been a major selling point as well. "Sign that -agreeing to be a cooperative agent of the CIA and to do everything possible to help us bring down Sloane- and your past sins are expurgated. Cross the United States government again and you will be prosecuted as a traitor."  
  
"I'm a foreign national."  
  
"Don't be obtuse. You're the child of an American citizen. That paperwork has already been filed too."  
  
"Well, that was rather thorough of you. I suppose this means your questions about my real name were rhetorical? You've given me one?"  
  
Jack nodded at the envelope. Sark's expression was inscrutable as he opened it.  
  
"Stephen Donahue Bristow," the boy read.   
  
"We debated about it for quite a while - between Donahue and Derevkov. Sydney had some interesting input…"  
  
"You asked Sydney about this too?" Jack almost smiled at the consternation in his voice.  
  
  
  
"It's what we would have done before you were born; ask her to help name her baby brother. We wouldn't have listened, of course -that's how we ended up with a cat named Yellow once- but we would have asked." He shrugged at his bemused son. "We decided that Stephen Donahue is what we would have named you if things had still been… normal. We realized that this was the only thing we could give you now that you should have had all along."  
  
"A name?"  
  
"Your name. You can hate it if you want too; most children do at some point. But it's yours - your real name."  
  
The boy looked back at the paper. Jack watched his eyes sweep across the print, taking in the exact terms and conditions. The bulk of the document was unremarkable, but Jack didn't blame him for reading it carefully. He suspected, however, that the cautious perusal was also being used as a cover while he absorbed his long-overdue christening.  
  
"I don't hate it," Sark said at last. When he glanced up again Jack saw the amusement in his face. "Just don't expect me to answer to it." With a sudden, decisive movement he laid the document on the top of a crate and scrawled a quick signature across the bottom of it. He frowned at it thoughtfully as the ink dried, then handed it back to his father.   
  
"Try to stay out of trouble now," Jack told him as he put the pardon away.  
  
"Sound paternal advice, but rather unrealistic," Sark said with a grin. "Got anything more practical?"  
  
"Be careful with your mother. Don't drag Sydney into anything you can't get her out of. Watch your back with Sloane… And I'm not telling you again to get a haircut."  
  
The boy's quick grin flashed once more and then he laughed aloud. "Yes, athair."  
  
* * * * 


	25. epilogue

epilogue -  
  
* * * *  
  
"Did he accept it?"  
  
"Yes," he replied, knowing she meant the name - not the pardon. That sort of politics had never impressed her. "He seemed a little disconcerted that we'd asked for Sydney's input though."  
  
"You didn't tell him about Yellow, did you?"  
  
"I probably shouldn't have. I think he was a bit overwhelmed by that point already." He smiled at her low laugh and refused to feel guilty about doing so. "I did refrain from mentioning that the poor cat was orange though."  
  
"Poor Sydney," she said through another snort of laughter. "She meant well."  
  
"Lucky Stephen," he countered. "Can you imagine what she would have wanted to name him if we'd asked her when she was six?"  
  
"Considering what she calls him now, I shudder to think what she'd have come up with then. And really, I doubt he would have been much better at that age." There was fond - if somewhat melancholy- amusement in her voice. "He probably would have named the cat Orange. He's always been a very literal child."  
  
"Did you ever wonder…?" He immediately regretted the question and was unable to finish it.  
  
"What could have been?" she concluded softly. There was a long pause before she spoke again. "Sydney would have adored him. He was a beautiful baby."  
  
"That adoration wouldn't have lasted long. The novelty would have certainly worn off by the time he'd learned to talk."  
  
"Undoubtedly. They would have tried to kill each other as teenagers."  
  
"If not earlier. And they would have made both of us insane long before then."  
  
They didn't admit aloud how nearly those things had come to pass anyhow. Nor did they speak of the other differences there would have been - of the lives not lost, the scars not inflicted. For the moment, it was enough to speculate wistfully about mischievous children and ill-named felines.  
  
"Could you have managed teaching both of them to drive?"  
  
"I sincerely doubt it. Sydney was bad enough. I can't imagine going through that twice."  
  
* * * *  
  
  
  
* * * *  
  
* * * *  
  
I too am one of those people who cringes at the thought of Sydney and Sark being siblings… on the show. In this tiny corner of the Alternate-Universe though, I thought it might be fun just to see if I could make SpySibs sound plausible.  
  
Sark has been called "Stephen" here because according to an interview with David Anders, Victor Garber himself calls the boy "Steve" since J.J. Abrams neglected to give him a proper name.   
  
For those who commented that the "children's" ages were a little off - Sorry. I didn't know when I started this how old Sydney was supposed to be when her mom died so I was basing numbers on the impression that it happened a little over twenty years ago and on the actors' real ages. Chalk any discrepancies up to Jack simply doing a little fuzzy math. He's under a lot of stress. Also bear in mind that if Sark seems "young", that was intended to be more Jack's view of him than may actually be the case in "reality".   
  
Missing Scenes:  
  
For a look at what happened between Sark and Irina after Jack left Hong Kong in chapter eighteen, Irina's version of the story can be found in "Mat' i Syn" at http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1479393  
  
For the full story behind Sark and Sydney's meeting in New Orleans that Syd recounts to Jack in chapter twenty-two, see "Sestrá i Brat" at http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1510242  
  
Thanks:  
  
Many thanks to Rez for beta-ing the last several chapters.   
  
And thank you to all the folks who gave this odd story a chance and so nicely encouraged me in the reviews. I write to entertain myself but it's awfully cool to know that other people have enjoyed this as well.  
  
* * * * 


End file.
